Oude Kerk, Amsterdam
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The Oude Kerk is Amsterdam's oldest building and newest art institute. The building was founded about 1213 and consecrated in 1306 by the bishop of Utrecht with Saint Nicolas as its patron saint. After the Reformation in 1578, it became a Calvinist church, which it remains today. It stands in De Wallen, now Amsterdam's main red-light district. The square surrounding the church is the Oudekerksplein.
Oude Kerk, viewed from across the Oudezijds Voorburgwal
Wooden ceiling
Church Window, Oude Kerk
Rembrandt's marriage record on display in the church
Beeldenstorm
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Beeldenstorm in Dutch and Bildersturm in German are terms used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th century, known in English as the Great Iconoclasm or Iconoclastic Fury and in French as the Furie iconoclaste. During these spates of iconoclasm, Catholic art and many forms of church fittings and decoration were destroyed in unofficial or mob actions by Calvinist Protestant crowds as part of the Protestant Reformation. Most of the destruction was of art in churches and public places.
Print of the destruction in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, the "signature event" of the Beeldenstorm, 20 August 1566, by Frans Hogenberg
Protestant polemical print celebrating the destruction, 1566
A German woodcut of 1530 titled Klagrede der armen verfolgten Götzen und Tempelbilder (English: "Complaint of the poor persecuted idols and temple pictures") by Erhard Schön.
An outdoor sermon (The Preaching of St. John the Baptist) depicted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, apparently in 1565, the year before the Beeldenstorm movement began.