Interior of the Sint-Pieterskerk, ‘s-Hertogenbosch

Sunlight falls across the whitewashed vaults and slender columns of the Sint-Pieterskerk in ’s-Hertogenbosch, emptying the church of worshippers and leaving only architecture and light. Pieter Saenredam was the first painter to make the church interior a subject in its own right, and this 1632 panel shows why: the cool precision of the measured perspective is warmed by the soft gold of the afternoon. A handful of tiny figures measure the towering space, an essay in stillness, geometry and the beauty of empty rooms.