Jan and Hubert van Eyck

Together with Sylvia, my wife, we stood and stared at an amazing work of art in the Sint-Braafs Cathedral in Gent for over half an hour. ‘Het drieluik – de aanbidding van het Lam Gods’. Truly one of the milestones in the history of art.

A master and 300 years of influence, Abraham Bloemaert

Today Sylvia and I visited the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, where we admired the exhibition ‘the Bloemaert-effect’. If one thinks of the Ducht Painters of the ‘Gouden Eeuw’, names like Rembrandt, Frans Hals en Johannes Vermeer quickly pop up. Abraham Bloemaert (born in 1566 in Gorinchem and died in 1651 in Utrecht), however, should certainly be added to such a list. Next to the great range of extraordinary and beautiful paintings Bloemaert produced hundreds of drawings. It is fascinating to see how he, during his lifetime (85 years), kept on growing in his trade, how he grew to become a master, and finally a artist.