Het Huis de Heilige Berg bij Leusden 1701 - 1759

Cornelis Pronk sketched 'Het Huis de Heilige Berg bij Leusden’ with pen in the 18th century. The stronghold, a stoic image of human defense, is a motif resonating across history. The architectural elements - the tower, the walls, the gate - evoke a sense of protection. Think back to the ancient ziggurats of Mesopotamia or the fortified cities of medieval Europe. These structural components express the human desire for security, reflecting a collective memory deeply embedded in our subconscious. Consider the tower; in antiquity, towers were literal high points in the landscape, allowing people to see, to know, and thus, to feel safer. The tower evolves into the minarets in Islamic culture, where they are used to call the faithful to prayer, or church towers topped with a cross. These are spiritual and communal guardians, evolving in symbolic function to define the sacred from the profane. The architectural details in this image speak of a primal need, a recurring theme in the theater of human history.