Materia Cantat

Cast in bronze, monolithic in shape, the conical sculptures of Harmen Brethouwer occupy space with calm assurance, asserting a kind of presence that feels settled, long-lasting. There is a sense of deliberation about them that suggests they were not conceived quickly. Their surfaces are austere, their contours uninterrupted. They offer no distraction or flourish. What they hold instead is something more durable: a formal restraint that concentrates the mind. Their gravity is literal, but also metaphysical.

Something gathers in the stillness they emit—an intensity not visible in their surface or shape. It inhabits the form, dwells in the bronze, like a force held in reserve. The object seems to wait. It is complete as it is, yet charged with a further possibility.

This latent quality is what sets these objects apart. The form contains something more than its mass and volume—an inner voice that remains quiet until given occasion to emerge. And when it does—when its voice is heard—the entire presence of the object shifts. What appeared solid and silent reveals itself as resonant and animate. The sculpture becomes a bell, and the space it inhabits, for a moment, becomes widened.

These works arose from Brethouwer’s long-standing interest in the conical form and his deep commitment to collaboration. In 2004, he approached Royal Eijsbouts—the most respected bell foundry in Europe—with a proposal. He wished to rethink the bell’s form entirely. His request was exact: the bell must take the shape of a cone.

It was a bold departure from centuries of refinement. Since the 17th century, the modern bell has owed its clarity to the pioneering work of François and Pieter Hemony and their partnership with the acoustician Jacob van Eyck. Together, they developed the first harmonically tuned bells. That tradition continues at Eijsbouts.

By questioning the well-honed silhouette of the bell, Brethouwer reopened the foundational question the Hemony brothers once answered: What must a bell be to sing?  To realize Brethouwer’s conical bell is to begin again. A new interior profile had to be developed—an acoustic architecture capable of summoning the bell’s voice from an unfamiliar body. The process was iterative, demanding an interplay of empirical knowledge and experimental modeling. Like the Hemony brothers with Van Eyck, Brethouwer worked in close dialogue with an acoustical engineer. What emerged was something previously unimagined: the transformation of the bell as a visual object—a sculptural form that resonates with full harmonic clarity, equal in tuning to its ecclesiastical model.

Though visually stationary, the Bell Bronzes are engineered to resonate. Each piece is suspended by an internal construction with only a hair’s breadth of play between the bell’s body and its footplate. This barely perceptible freedom allows the sculpture to swing and sing when struck. Activated by a hand-held clapper, these objects reveal that they carry the soul of the bell.

E.V.F.