Artwork Data
Artwork Location
Address
Warmoezierstraat, Den Haag
City district
Centrum
GPS data
52.074809171828, 4.3016785473602 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
On its fiftieth anniversary in 1923, the Joannes de Deo Hospital at Westeinde received a fitting present. The citizens had collected money to donate a statue of the Sacred Heart to the Catholic hospital. For in the garden. When the hospital - renamed Westeinde Hospital in 1969 - moved to new premises on the Lijnbaan in 1979, the statue went with it. In the meantime, it has been placed in the green strip in the car park behind the hospital. There it stands fraternally next to the statue of St. Michael.
The veneration of the Sacred Heart of Christ is a special form of spirituality within the Roman Catholic Church. Love and mercy are central to it, with a burning heart as its symbol. Although Sacred Heart devotion has been around since the Middle Ages, it blossomed again in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, there was an enormous production of Sacred Heart statues. Especially in North Brabant and Limburg.
The Sacred Heart statue in front of the hospital in The Hague was made by a specialist: the Belgian sculptor Aloïs de Beule. He made this special variant after a design by the church painter and artist Dorus Hermsen. Normally only Christ with a burning heart is shown. In this case, on the left at Christ's feet, a man on his sickbed is supported by a Sister of Charity, the monastic order that made the Catholic hospital great. On the right at his feet, a woman is kneeling and showing her sick child to Christ.
De Beule has depicted all the figures in traditional academic style. In other words, based on reality, with a bit of theatrical posture and facial expressions. Exactly as it was in those days. At the beginning of the 21st century, there are only a few Sacred Heart statues left. The one behind the hospital in The Hague evokes memories of Rich Catholic Life between the wars.