medieval cathedral statues

MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL STATUES in 12 pictures (february 2020)

The St. John’s cathedral in the city Den Bosch (Netherlands) features some unique statues. Almost 100 statues, 1 meter (3 feet) big, are sitting on the supportpillars. These pillars are constructed to prevent the high churchwalls from collapsing. They rise to about 30 meters (90 feet) high, floating in the air.

the hornblower

From below the street the far away statues can hardly be seen. After a long period of the cathedral’s restauration, people were allowed to walk outside on the high roofs. A one-time unique opportunity to get close to the statues and have a good and stunning look.

Every statue represents a unique person, carved with fine detail. You can see people playing all kinds of instruments, having joy, working, carving, sewing, a couple making love to each other. We also see diseased people, a blind man, a starving man, some animals and so on. All together a true picture of the medieval men and women. But we also see disturbing creatures, men with clawlike feet. Reminders of the earthly dangers and the obligation to keep living in accordance to God. The statues give away a feel of the medieval mind.

There are lots of paintings from the medieval ages. Having closely seen the St. John’s statues, I think they have given me a more intimate feeling than books and paintings have done.

All pictures are shot in compressed Raw, with the fuji XPRO2 camera and the 55-200/3.5-4.8 zoomlens. Postprocessing is done in Lightroom 6.1 stand-alone software.