Altaar van de Heilige Jacobus 1741

This is Pieter Balthasar Bouttats’s etching of the altar of Saint James, rich with symbols, motifs, and iconography that resonate deeply within our cultural memory. Note the angels, with their trumpets, symbols of divine announcement and judgment. These figures are not unique to Christianity, echoes of winged messengers appear in ancient mythologies, from Hermes to Iris, acting as conduits between the celestial and earthly realms. We find them across time, from classical Greek sculptures to Renaissance paintings, each iteration subtly altered, yet retaining a connection to its archetypal ancestor. The cross that crowns the structure, beyond its immediate religious significance, also serves as a meeting point, a nexus where earthly and divine intersect, a point of transcendence. This symbol represents the intersection of the sacred and the profane that can be found in other traditions. It reminds us that the symbols evolve but never disappear, resurfacing to carry new, yet historically burdened, meaning.