Achter de Dom te Utrecht 1755

Pieter Jan van Liender created this wash drawing, "Achter de Dom te Utrecht", sometime in the 18th century. Van Liender was working in a period where the Dutch Republic was dealing with internal political struggles and economic decline, which impacted the social and cultural values of the time. In this piece, the artist directs our gaze towards the Dom church in Utrecht, a towering symbol of religious and political power. The streets are occupied by people of different classes, but there’s a distinct separation. The drawing invokes a sense of the everyday, but also hints at a society structured by rigid hierarchies. There is a quiet, perhaps melancholy, beauty to the artist's rendering of the architecture that almost seems to yearn for a time when the church was an undisputed representation of community. This work invites us to reflect on the past and how its structures and social stratifications still echo in our contemporary world. It pushes us to consider how far we have come, and what we have left behind.