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Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists, also known as the Flemish Primitives, active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Tournai, Bruges, Ghent and Brussels. The period begins approximately with the careers of Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck. It lasts at least to the death of Gerard David in 1523; many scholars extend it to the death of Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1569, or the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568, or to the start of the 17th century. Early Netherlandish painting corresponds to the early and high Italian Renaissance but is seen as an independent artistic culture, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in central Italy. Because the art of these painters represent the culmination of the northern European Medieval artistic heritage and the incorporation of Renaissance ideals, it is categorised as belonging to both the Early Renaissance and the Late Gothic.

The Early Netherlandish period coincides with the height of Burgundian influence in Europe. The Low Countries became a political and economic centre, noted for crafts and the production of luxury goods. Driven by the success of the Burgundian duchy, the region enjoyed a period of financial prosperity and became an area of intellectual and artistic free thought. The paintings of the Netherlandish masters were often exported for the German and Italian markets. Aided by the workshop system, high-end panels were mass-produced both for sale on the open market and on commission.

The major artists of this period include Campin, van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus, Simon Marmion, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Gerard David, Hieronymus Bosch and Bruegel. These artists made significant advances in natural representation and illusionism, and their work often features complex iconography. Their subjects are usually religious scenes or small portraits, with narrative painting or mythological subjects being relatively rare. Landscape, although often lush and well described, was usually relegated to the background. The works of this period are mostly panel paintings, which might comprise single panels or more complex altarpieces, usually in the form of hinged triptychs or polyptychs. In addition, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass and sculptures were common luxury goods produced for the higher end of the export market.

Terminology and scope

The Early Netherlandish painters are as difficult to categorise chronologically as geographically. Broadly the term applies to painters active in the areas under the control of Dukes of Burgundy and later the Habsburg dynasty. The era is usually accepted as beginning with the Master of Flémalle, and in the strictest sense ends with the death of Gerard David. However the mid- and late 16th-century Netherlandish schools, including Masseys and Hieronymus Bosch, are frequently associated, although their style and approach is often dramatically different from the 15th-century tradition.

The painters are known by a variety of terms; "Late Gothic" and the "Flemish Primitives" are earlier designations, especially in Dutch and German. "Primitives" in the context of 15th- and 16th-century art does not refer to any perceived lack of sophistication; rather it identifies the artists as the originators of a new tradition in painting, notably for the innovative handling of oil paint over tempera. Art historian Erwin Panofsky applied the term "Ars nova" ("new art") and "Nouvelle pratique" ("new practice"), thereby linking the movement with innovative composers such as Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois favoured by the Burgundian court of the time. "Late Gothic" emphasizes continuity with the Middle Ages, while "Flemish Primitives" is a traditional art history term borrowed from the French that came into fashion in the 19th century. In English, the term Flemish has assumed many different meanings over the centuries, and from the early 20th century has often been seen as too vague a term in that language. Following the lead of Max Friedländer, Panofsky, Otto Pächt and other German-language art historians, English-language scholars typically describe the period as "Early Netherlandish painting" (German: Altniederländische Malerei).

The use of this term, as well as more general descriptors like "Ars nova" and the inclusive "Northern Renaissance art", allows for a broader geographic base beyond modern geopolitical designations of Flanders and the Netherlands than the more exclusive "Flemish", and 'Netherlandish' refers to the Low Countries as a whole rather than the modern state of the Netherlands. Commentators often used the terms Flemish and Netherlandish (that is, "of the Low Countries") interchangeably: to 16th-century Italian painter and historian Giorgio Vasari, northern painters were "fiamminghi", or "Flemmings". Flanders is a term that now refers specifically to distinct parts of Belgium, but during the 15th to mid 16th centuries, the modern national borders of France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands did not exist. Painters and merchants, both native and foreign, congregated in the Flemish cities of Bruges and Ghent, the main regional centres of international banking, trade and art.

A number of the artists traditionally associated with the movement had linguistic origins that were neither Dutch nor Flemish in the modern sense. The Francophone Rogier van der Weyden was born Rogier de la Pasture. The German Hans Memling and the Estonian Michael Sittow both worked in the Netherlands in a fully Netherlandish style. Simon Marmion is often regarded as an "Early Netherlandish" painter because he came from Amiens, intermittently ruled by the Burgundian court between 1435 and 1471.

The artists

A number of different schools of painting developed across northern Europe in the late 14th and early to mid 15th centuries. The domination of Gothic art in France gave away to the International Gothic era, which in turn began to wane at the turn of the 15th century. New and distinctive painterly cultures sprang up with Ulm, Nuremberg, Vienna and Munich being the most important artistic centers around the start of the 16th century. Technical developments and the emergence of new media profoundly changed the art of the region, including printmaking (using woodcuts or copperplate engraving) and other innovations borrowed from France and southern Italy. A consolidating change in approach came with van Eyck's use of oil as a medium to allow better manipulation of paint. His technique was quickly adopted and developed further by Campin and van der Weyden. These three artists are considered the first rank and most influential of the early generation of Early Netherlandish painters. Their influence was felt across northern Europe, from Bohemia and Poland in the east, to Austria and Swabia in the south.

The Burgundian empire was at the peak of its influence, and the innovations made by the Netherlandish painters were soon recognised across the continent. By the time of his death, van Eyck's paintings were highly sought after by wealthy patrons across Europe seeking to embellish their collections. Copies of his works became popular and circulated widely, resulting in the spread of the Netherlandish style to southern and central Europe. Central European art was then under the dual influence of innovations from Italy and from the north. Often the influence was cross-bred, and the exchange of ideas between the Netherlandish and Italian artists lead to patronisation by significant figures such as Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, who commissioned works from both traditions.

Albrecht Dürer emulated van Eyck's attention to detail and precision but focused on the secular. The early Netherlandish masters' influence also reached artists such as Stefan Lochner and the Master of the Life of the Virgin, who, working in mid-15th century Cologne, drew inspiration from imported commissions by van der Weyden and Bouts, painters who had already passed beyond the High Gothic. By the 16th century the techniques had become standard throughout northern Europe. In addition, painters had begun to enjoy a new level of respect and status; patrons no longer simply commissioned works but rather courted the artists themselves, sponsoring their travel and exposing them to new and wider ranges of influences.

Van Eyck and van der Weyden were highly placed in the Burgundian court, with van Eyck in particular assuming roles for which an ability to read Latin was a necessity and the use of his device shows he had good knowledge of Latin and Greek. Schooling in reading and writing was typically part of an apprentice painter's education. In addition a number of panels are heavily decorated with elaborate Latin and Greek inscriptions.

As Bruges diminished as an artistic centre around 1500, the Antwerp Mannerists came to the fore. Although their names are largely lost and they were active only from about 1500 to 1530, their emergence is sometimes considered to mark the end of the Early Netherlandish period. The Antwerp Mannerists are so-called because, although incorporating Italian influences, they were thought to represent a "latent Gothic" still informed by the Netherlandish traditions of the preceding century.

Gerard David provided linkage between the styles of Bruges and Antwerp, as he often travelled between the cities. He moved there in 1505 when Quentin Matsys was the head of the Antwerp painters guild, and the two became friends. Tellingly, David's style is more fluid than van Eyck's, showing less concern with a forensic approach. His lines are easier, he avoids diagonals in favour of a harmonious balance of verticals and horizontal strokes and tended towards deep and harmonious colouring.

Hieronymus Bosch was active in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and remains one of the most important and well known of the Netherlandish painters. However he was anomalous in that he showed less interest in realistic depictions of nature or human existence and was largely unconcerned with perspective. Many of his works included fantastical elements that tended towards the hallucinatory. Pieter Bruegel the Elder followed and developed Bosch's style, but was among the few to do so.

Technique and material

The innovations of Campin, van Eyck and van der Weyden revolutionised the approach towards naturalism and realism in Northern European painting. These artists sought to show the natural world as it actually was, and depict people in a way that made them more human-looking, and with a greater complexity of emotions than had been previously be seen. They took an interest in the accurate reproduction of objects (according to Panofsky they painted "gold that looked like gold") as well as natural phenomena such as the fall of light and the plays of reflection. They abandoned the flat perspective and merely outlined figuration of earlier painting in favour of three-dimensional pictorial spaces, while the position of the viewers and how they might relate to the scene became important for the first time. Van Eyck positions the Arnolfini Portrait for viewers as if they had just entered the room containing the two figures.

Innovations in the use of materials and painterly techniques allowed far richer, more luminous and closely detailed representations of people, landscapes, interiors and objects. The chief innovation came from the handling of oil paint. The use of oil as a medium in Northern European painting can be traced to the 12th century, however until the 1430s egg tempera was the dominant medium. Egg when used as a binder tends to dry quickly and produce bright and light colours, therefore it is a difficult medium in which to achieve naturalistic textures or deep shadows.

Oil allows smooth translucent surfaces, and can be applied in a range of thicknesses, from fine lines to thick broad strokes. It dries slowly and thus can be manipulated while still wet, giving the artist more time to add subtle detail and allow hatching, wet-on-wet painting and the ability to achieve smooth transition of colours and tones by removing layers of paint to expose those below. In addition oil allows differentiation between degrees of reflective light, from shadow to bright beams as well as minute depictions of light effects through use of transparent glazes. This new freedom in controlling light gave rise to more precise and realistic depictions of surface textures, seen notably in van Eyck's portrayals of light falling on jewellery, wooden floors, rich textiles and household objects.

The majority of the works were painted on wood rather than the less-expensive canvas. The wood was usually oak, often imported from the Baltic region, with the preference for radially cut boards which are less likely to warp. Typically the sap was removed and the board well-seasoned before use. The common use of wood has greatly aided dendrochronological dating, while the particular use of Baltic oak gives clues as to the artist's location. The panels generally show very high degrees of craftsmanship; Lorne Campbell notes that most are "beautifully made and finished objects. It can be extremely difficult to find the joins." Many of the frames were altered, repainted or gilded in the 18th and early 19th centuries when it was common practice to break apart hinged Netherlandish pieces so they could be sold as genre pieces. A majority of the surviving panels are painted on both sides, often with emblems, crests or drawings. In the case of single panels, the markings on the reverse are often wholly unrelated to the obverse and maybe later additions, or as Campbell speculates, "done for the artist's amusement".

Glue was often used as an inexpensive alternative to oil. Although a large number of works using this medium were produced, few survive today, mainly due to both the perishability of linen cloth to which the pigment was applied and the solubility of the hide glue from which the binder was derived. Well-known and relatively well-preserved—though substantially damaged—examples include Matsys' c. 1415–25 Virgin and Child with Saints Barbara and Catherine and Dieric Bouts' c. 1440–55 Entombment. The paint was generally applied with brushes, but sometimes with thin sticks or brush handles. Artists sometimes softened the contours of shadows with their fingers, at times to blot or reduce the glaze. Typically the frames of hinged works are engaged, in that they were constructed before the individual panels were worked on.

Relationship to the Italian Renaissance

The emerging style in the north developed almost simultaneously with the early Italian Renaissance. While advancements in Italy were borne from the rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman traditions, imbued with the new found doctrine of humanism, the northern painters doctrine was built on elements of recent Gothic tradition. The philosophical and artistic traditions of the Mediterranean were not part of the northern heritage, to the extent that many elements of Latin culture were actively disparaged.

The role of Renaissance humanism was not as pronounced in the Low Countries as it was in Italy. Local religious trends had a strong influence, and their influence can be seen in the subject matter, composition and form of many late 13th and early 14th artworks. While religious paintings—including altarpieces for churches or private devotion—remained dominant in Early Netherlandish art, secular portraiture became increasingly common both in northern and southern Europe as Netherlandish and Italian artists freed themselves from the medieval idea that portraiture should be restricted to saints and historical figures. In Italy this development was tied to the ideals of humanism; in the Low Countries the rise of individualism was not as pronounced at first, and arose partly because of a merchant class that was newly able to afford such commissions and partly through the daring of individual artists.

Italian influences on Netherlandish art are first apparent in the late 1400s, when some of the painters began to travel south. By then Mannerism was the predominant style in Italy, a reason why a number of later Netherlandish artists became associated with, in the words of art historian Rolf Toman, "picturesque gables, bloated, barrel-shaped columns, droll cartouches, 'twisted' figures, and stunningly unrealistic colours—actually employ the visual language of Mannerism". As in Florence, where banking and trade led to numerous private commissions, wealthy merchants commissioned religious paintings for private devotion (often including themselves in the form of donor portraits) as well as secular portraits. Additionally, the presence of the Burgundian court in Urbino and other Italian cities allowed court artists to flourish. Painters were increasingly aware of their position in society: they signed their works more often, painted self-portraits, and became well-known figures because of their artistic activities.

The Northern masters were much admired in Italy, and Friedländer argues that they exercised a stronger influence over 15th-century Italian artists than vice versa. exclusive north to south influence first appeared in the scholarship of Friedländer and was supported by Panofsky; Innovations introduced in the north that were adopted in Italy included the setting of figures in domestic interiors and the viewing of an interior from multiple vantage points through openings such as doors or windows, Hugo van der Goes's Portinari Altarpiece played an important role in introducing Florentine painters to trends from the north, and artists like Antonello da Messina probably came under the influence of Netherlandish painters working in Sicily, Naples and later Venice.

Patronage

The first generation of artists were literate, well-educated and mostly from middle-class backgrounds. A number were financially successful and much sought after in the Low Countries and by patrons across Europe. Van der Weyden sent his son to the Old University of Leuven, while many, including Gerard David and Bouts, could afford to donate large works to churches, monasteries and convents of their choosing. Van Eyck was a valet de chambre at the Burgundian court, and had easy access to Philip the Good. Van der Weyden was a prudent investor in stocks and property, Lucas Cranach managed a trade in pharmaceutical goods, Mathias Grunewald in pigments. Dieric Bouts, never one to let a commercial opportunity pass him, married the heiress, Catherine "Mettengelde" (Catherine 'with the money'). Vrancke van der Stockt diverted his earnings into investments in land.

Although most of the artists lived in towns rather than in cities or at court, they produced for both domestic and central European markets. The merchant and banker classes were in the ascendancy, and the Low Countries attracted patronage from the Baltic coast, the north German and Polish cities, the Iberian Peninsula, and cities such as Venice, Milan and Florence, as well as the powerful families of England and Scotland.

The taste of the Burgundian dukes tended towards extravagance. They created a high demand for highly decorated illuminated Manuscripts and tended towards such opulence as gold-edged tapestries and cups bordered with pearls and rubies. Their taste for finery trickled down through their court and nobles, to the people who for the large part commissioned local artists. While Early Netherlandish paintings were not so heavily lined with gold that they had intrinsic value, they were perceived as being of the first rank of European painting. A 1425 document written by Philip the Good explains that he hired a painter for the "excellent work that he does in his craft" (pour cause de l'excellent ouvrage de son mėtier qu'il fait).

The work of the Netherlandish artists was highly regarded as far as Italy and Spain, and an export market developed for the paintings. By the 1460s they were being commissioned specifically for export to Naples or Florence. Campbell notes that the works that were exported tended to have had a higher survival rate; mainly due to the local mid-16th century iconoclasm and the devastation of Northern Europe during the Second World War. Wealthy foreign patronage and the development of international trade afforded the established masters the chance to build up workshops with assistants. The masters' workshops typically consisted of a family home with lodging for apprentices who were either earning their entry into the painters' guild or fully trained journeymen artists who had not yet paid the dues required to establish their own workshop.

In the workshop system, the master would often be responsible for painting the focal or important portions of the work, such as the face or fingers of the figures, and the richly embroidered clothing. The more prosaic sections would be left to the assistants, and in many works it is possible to discern abrupt shifts in style. If the master was secure enough financially, he could dedicate his workshop to the production of copies of his commercially successful works, or on new compositions based on his designs. In this case, the master would usually produce the underdrawing or design. Because of this many surviving works are today attributed to workshops or followers.

The early to mid-14th century saw a large increase in international trade and domestic wealth, leading to enormous increase in the demand for art works. These were sold either locally through direct sales at workshops or market stalls or through a developing international trade specialising in luxury goods. The mid-15th century first saw the development of art dealership as a profession; at first masters acted as their own dealers, attending fairs where they could also buy frames, panels and pigments until it became a purely commercially driven activity dominated by the members of the mercantile class.

Research has been hampered by the lack of surviving contemporary documentation, while that which has survived often refers to panels that have not.

Formats

The Netherlandish artists are primarily remembered for their paintings, yet their output included a wide variety of luxury goods, including tapestries, carved retables, illuminated Manuscripts, stained glass and brass objects. According to art historian Susie Nash, the region led the field in almost every aspect of movable visual culture, "with specialist expertise and techniques of production at such a high level that no one else could compete with them." There was considerable cross-over; van Eyck and Christus are both thought to have worked on manuscripts, while Van der Weyden and members of his workshop designed tapestries, though few survive. The Netherlandish painters were responsible for many innovations, including the advancement and popularity of the diptych format, the conventions of donor portraits, the crystallising of new conventions for Marian portraits, and through works such as van Eyck's c. 1435 Madonna of Chancellor Rolin and van der Weyden's 1435-40 Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, laying the foundations for the development of landscape painting as a genre of itself.

Although the religious iconography used by the Netherlandish painters is often complex, layered and abundant, a common misunderstanding is that it is obscure. In fact many of the symbols appear repeatedly and come from contemporary motifs of Christian myth, especially portraits of the Virgin with the Child and scenes from the Life of Christ. When an artist chose to include an iconographical element that would not have been commonly known to the well-educated, the tendency was to make the reference explicit by surrounding it with more popular symbols. In many ways the imagery is similar to that employed by Italian artists, although the favoured biblical subject matter differs owing to regional differences in doctrine.

Devotional panels

Given the central role of prayer in Northern European late medieval society, paintings and adornments served an important aid to those who could afford them. In the pursuit of salvation, prayer and meditation were seen as a means to gain protection from the holy family or favourite saints. Prayer was the most obvious means of decreasing time in limbo, while the more well off substituted by commissioning churches or extensions or artworks, or devotional portraits. Vast numbers of Virgin and Child paintings were produced, of which many of the original designs were widely copied and exported, of which, in turn, many were based on 12-13th century Byzantine prototypes, perhaps of which the Cambrai Madonna is the most well known. Such widely copied sources were absorbed into the northern European tradition, and became part of the development of a distinct rich and complex iconographical tradition.

Devotion to Mary grew from the 13th century, mostly forming around the concepts of the Immaculate Conception and her ascension into heaven. Thus, in a culture that venerated the possession of relics as a means to bring the earthly closer to the divine, Mary could have left no bodily relics, thus assuming a special position between heaven and humanity. By the early 1400s, Mary had grown in importance within the Christian doctrine that she was most commonly seen as the most accessible intercessor with God. The Byzantine idealisation of Marian Icons as well as the concept of purgatory was at its height, and it was thought that the length each person would need to suffer in limbo was proportional to their display of devotion while on earth. The cult of Mary reached an apex in the early 15th century, while incidences around the Life of Christ, especially of his infancy or from the 16th century, centred around portrayals of the Man of Sorrows, were popular subjects for painters.

The cult and veneration that developed around her led to a high demand for dedicated paintings, and from those who could afford, donor portraits. Van der Weyden innovated with his half length Marian portraits which echoed in style and colour the Byzantine icons then popular in Italy as "miracle" working paintings. The format became extremely popular in the north, and his innovation is a major contributing reason for the emergence of Marian and after more general devotional diptychs as a lasting format of Early Netherlandish painting.

Triptychs and altarpieces

The first generation of Netherlandish masters, particularly van Eyck and van der Weyden, borrowed many of the established conventions of triptych altarpieces from pre-renaissance Italian artists of the 13th and 14th centuries. Typically the mid-ground of the central panel would contain saints, with angels or supplementary scenes from the saint's life shown in the wing panels. Triptychs produced in the Low Countries became popular across Europe from the late 14th century, and sustained a high level of demand until the early 1500s. The earliest known Netherlandish altarpieces are "compound" works, that is incorporating both engraving and painting; usually a carved central corpus which could be folded over by two painted wings. Such types were being commissioned by German patrons by the 1380s, however large-scale export did not begin until around 1400.

Very few of the early examples survive. Those that do date from after 1380 and tend to be unattributed "compound altarpieces" consisting of a carved centre corpus with two painted hinged wings. The word triptych did not exist during the era; the works were known as "paintings with doors". That they could be opened and closed served a practical purpose. Typically the interior images would only be visible on religious holidays, when the generally prosaic outer panels would be replaced by the more lush interior view. In the earlier altarpieces, the "nature of the subject" was of the greatest importance, explains Johan Huizinga, who goes on to say the more sacred the subject then the depiction was more decorative and elaborate.

Polyptychs offered even more scope for variation as there were a greater number of combinations of viewable interior and exterior panels. The 1432 Ghent altarpiece is known to have had different configuration for weekdays, Sundays and holidays. It comprises 12 exterior and 14 interior painted panels, and the different possible combinations of panels would lead to different combinations of meanings.

The high demand for Netherlandish altarpieces in the mid-15th century can be deduced by that they are often found in the larger churches of northern Germany and southern Europe. Till-Holger Borchert describes how "these splendid altarpieces reflect a refined culture of representation for purposes of prestige which, in the first half of the fifteenth century, only the workshops of the Burgundian Netherlands were capable of achieving." By the 1390s, Netherlandish altarpieces were being exported to churches in northern Germany, mostly from Brussels or Bruges. The popularity of Brussels altarpieces lasted until around 1530, when the output of the Antwerp workshops became more favoured, in part owing to their innovation of dividing the creation of the different portions of the panels between specialised workshop members, which Borchert describes as an early form of "division of labour".

When Mannerism emerged in the mid-1500s, the Netherlandish multi-panel paintings fell out of favour and were considered old-fashioned, while iconoclasm deemed them unfavourable or offensive. During the iconoclasm of the 1560s, many of those kept in the Low Countries were destroyed, and most extant examples from pre-1400 come from German churches and monasteries. The works were often broken up and sold as individual works, especially if one of the panels featured an image that could be passed off as a genre piece. In some instances, a panel would be cut down to only the figure with the background over-painted so that "it looked sufficiently like a genre piece to hang in a well-known collection of Dutch 17th-century paintings."

Diptychs

Diptychs were especially popular in Northern Europe between the 1430s and the 1560s, typically as a less expensive or portable altarpiece. Generally they tended to consist of donor panels placed alongside portraits of saints. The diptych format was developed by Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and later refined by Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling and Jan van Scorel. They were usually miniature in scale, and formed from two equally size panels joined with flexible hinges so that they display both opened and closed views. Typically the inner images were thematically linked: when the wings are closed, the interior panels were protected and the images on the exterior, often a crest of arms, became visible.

Diptychs are distinct to pendants in that they are joined by hinges and are not merely two paintings hung side-by-side. They typically served a private devotional purpose; the panels frequently included commissioned donor portraits, often of husbands and their wives. Many versions of a limited number of religious scenes appear in these; numerous depictions of "The Virgin and Child" survive, reflecting the Virgin's contemporary popularity as a subject of devotion. Their development and commercial popularity has been linked to a change in religious attitude in northern Europe in the late-14th century, when a more meditative and inward approach to devotion, for example the practices of the Devotio Moderna movement, grew in popularity. Private reflection and prayer were encouraged, and the usually small scale, more affordable Netherlandish diptychs fitted this purpose, and were popular both amongst the newly emerging middle class and the more affluent monasteries of the Low Countries and Germany. In many instances the diptych would have been commissioned not just for purposes of devotion, but also to acquire a symbol of wealth and status.

Technical examination of surviving examples indicate that the panels, especially those in which one wing is given to a donor, show significant differences in technique, indicating that it was common for areas of the works to be finished by members of the master's workshop. Art historian John Hand believes that, especially with diptychs, the divine panel was often produced for the open market while the donor panel was added after the master had found a commissioning patron. As with Netherlandish altarpieces and triptychs, many of the diptychs were later broken apart and sold as single "genre" panels. Today there are few surviving examples intact with their original pendant, frame and hinges.

Portraiture

Before 1430 secular portraiture was rare in European art. A large number of single devotional panels showing saints and biblical figures were being produced, but the practice of depicting historically real, known individuals did not begin until the era of the Netherlandish painters, with van Eyck the pioneer. His 1432 Léal Souvenir is one of the earliest surviving examples, and is considered emblematic of the new style. It marks a new approach to representation in a number of ways, primarily in its realism and acute observation of the small details of the unknown man's appearance. This is evident through its portrayal of his narrow shoulders, pursed lips and thin eyebrows, down to detailing the moisture of his blue eyes.

In 1508–09 Albrecht Dürer described the basic function of portraiture as "preserving a person's appearance after his death". During the 15th century portraits were objects of status, and served to ensure that the individual's personal success was recorded and would endure after death. Before 1500, most tended to exclusively show royalty, the upper nobility or princes of the church. However the new affluence in the Burgundian Netherlands saw a wider variety of clientele, as members of the upper middle class were now able to afford to commission a portrait, or very often, commission a religious work in which their likeness would be inserted. For this reason we know more about how the people of the region looked and dressed since any time since the late Roman period. Whereas European art had been preoccupied with idealised representations of saints and biblical figures, the early Netherlandish painters began to paint faces with a high degree of individuality; faces that for the first time stare out confidently at the viewer.

Donor or votive portraits were a separate industry and typically show the patron kneeling to one side in the foreground before a saint. The convention held that although the patron could be shown in close proximity to the heavenly figures, there would be no eye contact; they would be typically shown with averted eyes, gazing into a middle distance.

The Netherlandish artists were responsible from the move away from the profile view, popular since Roman coinage and medals, towards the less formal and engaging three-quarters pose. At this angle, more than one side of the face is visible as the sitter's body is—almost but not quite—directly facing the viewer, while the far ear is generally not visible. The three-quarters pose allows a better view of the shape and features of the head and allows the sitter to look out directly at the viewer. Van Eyck's 1433 Portrait of a Man is an early example of the method, and is all the more notable as it its likely van Eyck himself who stares out at us. Yet the gaze of the sitter rarely engages the viewer. Although there is direct eye contact between subject and viewer, normally the look is detached, aloof and uncommunicative, perhaps to reflect the subject's high social position. There are exceptions, typically in bridal portraits or in the case of potential betrothals where the object of the work is to make the sitter as attractive as possible to the intended assessors. In these cases the sitter was often shown smiling, with an engaging, fresh and radiant expression designed to appeal to her intended.

Although van Eyck was the innovator in the new approach to portraiture, van der Weyden more fully developed the technique and was arguably more influential on the following generations of painters. Rather than merely follow van Eyck's meticulous attention to detail, van der Weyden focused on providing more abstract and sensual representations. He became highly sought after as a portraitist; there is a noticeable similarity in his portraits, likely because, as a labour-saving device, he used and reused the same under-drawings, that met a common ideal of rank and piety, for his works. He would then add finishing touches to highlight the facial expressions of the particular sitter. Later, Petrus Christus adapted the technique of setting figures against naturalistic as opposed to flat and featureless backgrounds.

Of the second generation, Hans Memling became the leading portraitist of the region and accepted commissions not only from the local middle class but also from Italy. He was highly influential on other painters and is credited with inspiring Leonardo's positioning of the sitter in the Mona Lisa before a landscape view. The French artist Jean Fouquet was similarly influenced by van Eyck and van der Weyden, while in Germany the influence can be seen in the works of Hans Pleydenwurff and Martin Schongauer amongst others.

Illuminated manuscript

During the early to mid-1400s, illuminated books were considered a higher art form than panel painting. Traditionally created in monasteries, as early as the 12th century demand led to specialist workshops, known in French as libraires, where religious works such as books of hours and prayerbooks, histories, romances, poetry and a wide range of moralizing works were created. In the 14th century, Paris became the major source of supply for illuminated manuscripts. There was considerable overlap between panel painting and illumination, and large manuscript commissions were often shared between several different masters, with more junior painters, many women, assisting, especially in producing the increasingly elaborate border decoration. By the mid-1400s illuminated manuscripts were considered treasured works of high craft and their ownership were considered indicators of wealth, status and taste. They became common as diplomatic gifts, or offerings to commemorate dynastic marriages. Paris' importance was supplanted in the 1440s by the cities of Bruges and Ghent. This was in part due to the patronage of the cultured Philip the Good, who by his death had collected over 1,000 books. When, in the early to mid 15th century, manuscripts were held in higher regard than panel paintings, masters would often produce single leaf illustrations to be almost randomly inserted into precious books, as a means for the master to display and advertise his skill.

Netherlandish artists found increasingly inventive and innovative ways to highlight and differentiate their ability from manuscript produced in surrounding countries, including elaborate page design and devising ways to relate scale and space. They explored the interplay between the three essential components of a manuscript; border, miniature and text. A striking and early example is the Nassau book of hours by the Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy, where the leafs are decorated with borders containing illusionistic, outsized objects such as flowers and insects, which achieve their effect by being broadly painted, as if scattered across the gilded surface of the miniatures. This technique was continued by, amongst others, the Master of James IV of Scotland. The Master of James IV especially experimented with the layout of his drawings on the page. Using various illusionistic elements, he often blurred the line between the miniature and its border, frequently using both in his efforts to advance the narrative of his scenes.

The Limbourg brothers's work marks perhaps the high point of what Harbison describes as "manipulative realistic imagery" with their ornate "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry", while the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy explored the same mix of illusionism and realism. The Limbourg brothers were perhaps the best known and most successful artists specialising in this area, although their career ended just as van Eyck's began, when their work on the especially ornate Très Riches Heures ended in 1416, when both the brothers and their patron, Jean, Duke of Berry, died, most likely of plague. Jan van Eyck is thought to have contributed to the "Turin-Milan Hours" as the anonymous but superior artist known as Hand G. A number of illustrations from the period show a strong stylistic resemblance to the work of Gerard David, though it is unclear whether they are by his hand or his followers.

The export market had long been important to the Netherlandish illuminators, with many works designed specifically for the English market. Following a decline in domestic patronage after the 1477 death of Charles the Bold, Philip the Good's son, illuminators began to produce ever more lavish and extravagantly decorated works tailored for the first rank of foreign notability, including James IV of Scotland and Eleanor of Viseu. The popularity of the arrival of print in the 16th century made books far more commonplace. Following this, illuminated manuscripts became an even more pronounced luxury good, and their painterly, decoration and luxurious qualities ever more valuable to those that could afford them, and often they served as a means to display the patron's wealth.

Tapestry

During the mid-15th century, tapestries were perhaps the most sought after visual product in Europe. They played a central political role as diplomatic gifts, especially in their larger format, as seen in the surviving example handed to Philip the Good at the Congress of Arras in 1435, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their practical value, apart from their lavishness, was in their portability, while textiles in general provided easy to put together environments for conducting religious or civic ceremonies. Their value is reflected in their relative positioning in contemporary inventories. They were typically positioned at the top of the record, and often according to their colouring and the material used, with white and gold considered at the first rank. Philip the Good was a leading patron, as was Jean de Berry who owned 19, while Mary of Burgundy, Isabella of Valois and Isabeau of Bavaria held collections. Charles V of France had fifty-seven, of which sixteen were white.

While a number of centres in Italy produced workshops dedicated to tapestries, commercial production excelled from the early 1400s across the Netherlands and northern France, especially in the cities of Arras, Bruges and Tournai. The perceived technical ability of the craftsmen in the region was such that, in 1517, Julius II sent Raphael's cartoons to Brussels to be woven into hangings.

In the 15th century the production of tapestries was an established and highly successful industry, with most of the commercial organisation centered around weaving. Looms were active in all the cities, in most of the towns and many of the villages, a fact that allowed the region to produce such as voluminous output; commissions could be farmed out and distributed across a large number of weavers. The designs, or cartoons (klein patroons in Flemish, petit patrons in French), were typically executed on paper or parchment, and usually put together by qualified painters. They were then sent, often across a great distance, to a separate body of weavers. Because cartoons could be re-used, craftsmen often worked on source material that was decades old. As both paper and parchment are highly perishable, very few of the original cartoons survive.

The looms were outside the guild or workshop structure, and often depended on a migrant workforce. The commercial activity was usually run by an entrepreneur, who had often trained as a painter. The entrepreneur would typically be involved in locating commissioning patrons and the stocking of cartoons, as well as in the provision of the raw materials, which often had to be imported and included wool, silk, and often gold, silver other adornments. He usually interacted directly with the client, getting approval both at the cartoon and final stages. This was often a difficult business; in 1400 Isabeau of Bavaria pointedly rejected a completed set by Colart de Laon having approved their design, to de Laon's - and presumably his commissioner's- considerable embarrassment.

Although tapestries were designed by painters, their aesthetic found its way back into panel painting. This is especially true with the later generations of painters of the 16th century who produced vast panoramas of heaven and hell. Harbison describes how the intricate, dense and overlaid detail of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights resembles, "in its precise symbolism...a medieval tapestry".

Destruction and dispersal

Works

During the schism of the Protestant Reformation and the European wars of religion of the 16th century, known as the Beeldenstorm in the Netherlands, thousands of religious objects and artifacts were destroyed. These included paintings, sculptures, altarpieces, stained glass windows, crucifixes; any object that had religious or iconographical imagery and was as "overtly luxurious" was considered idolatrous. The reformers did not so much to object to the ideals for which the imagery stood, but the manner in which they were commissioned and worshiped. Outbreaks of reformist iconoclasm reoccurred across much of Northern Europe from 1520 and continued for around 130 years. In 19 August 1566, an outburst that had swept through the Netherlands hit Ghent. It was witnessed by the historian and chronicler Marcus van Vaernewijck (1518-69) who saw the Ghent Altarpiece "taken to pieces and lifted, panel by panel, into the tower to preserve it from the rioters". One of the most significant losses was a polytriptych by van der Weyden, Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald, which is today known only from a tapestry copy, but had been compared in scale and impact to van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece.

As a result, few artworks – even from the major painters – survive. Of van Eyck's work between 22 to 24 paintings can confidently be attributed, though this number is constantly being challenged and revised. With Petrus Christus, the number is much less. And there is no reason to believe these painters were not prolific. In general, the works that did survive were those that were either commissioned for export to Italy or Spain, where they were in high demand, or those that were looted by foreign armies before the worst of the outbreaks of iconoclasm had ended.

A great number of the artworks were commissioned by clergy for their churches, and were ordered by design, that is to fit within an overall existing framework and thematic design. An idea of how this might have looked can be seen from both van Eyck's Madonna in the Church and van der Weyden's London Exhumation of St Hubert. In van der Weyden's description we get an insightful look into the appearance of pre-reformation churches and the manner in which images were placed or hung so that they resonated with other paintings or objects. According to art historian Susie Nash "any one would necessarily be seen in relation to other images, repeating, enlarging, or diversifying the chosen themes". Because iconoclasm targeted churches and cathedrals, this original context of any individual work is now lost, and with it we lose insight as to any intended meaning.

Documentation

The historical record is very poor, and to this day even the major artists remain clouded in obscurity, with only bare outlines of the lives of even the major painters known, while attribution of specific painting remains an ongoing, contentious and shifting issue. There are a number of contributing factors to this situation. Large amounts of documentation were lost in the burning of municipal buildings, for example in Brussels in 1695, while a great many archives were destroyed in bombing campaigns in the two world wars. In addition because of the huge loss of works during the waves of iconoclasm, a great many of those works for whom records and descriptions survive are themselves lost or destroyed. The keeping of records in the region was anyway inconsistent and very often the export of works by even major artists was, owing to the pressures of commercial demand, produced quickly and its shipping not notarised. The surviving documentation tends to come from inventories, wills, payment accounts, employment contracts and guild records and regulations.

Establishing the names of Netherlandish masters and attributing specific works has been problematic and difficult. The practice of signing and dating works is rarely seen in the region until the 1420s, and the inventories of collectors, while often fantastically and elaborately detailing the works in their possession, did not tend to attach much importance to recording the name of the artist or workshop that produced them. A great many early Netherlandish masters have not been identified, and are today know by names of convenience, or Notnames. Typically these pseudonyms are applied after commonality is established for a grouping of works, of which a similarity of theme, style, iconography, biblical source or physical location can probably be attributed to one individual or workshop, but because of lack of surviving documentary record, the name of that individual is lost. Groupings of works under a given notname can often be contentious; in specific cases art historians have argued that the reality may be a group or school of artists working under a common influence or commercial demand. This situation is complicated by the fact that some artists who were known by pseudonyms are now identified, albeit sometimes controversially as in the case of Robert Campin who is today usually, but not always, associated as the Master of Flémalle.

Many of the unidentified late 14th and early 15th century northern artists were of the first rank, but because they have not been attached to any historical person, have suffered from academic neglect. It is probably a truism to say that, as Susie Nash put it, "much of what cannot be firmly attributed remains less studied". Some art historians believe that this has led to a lack of caution in connecting works with historical persons, and that such establishments often hangs on thin threads of circumstantial evidence. The identities of a number of well known artists have been founded on the basis of a single signed, documented or otherwise attributed work, with similar works sharing close style or within a geographical range also attached to that name. Examples include Hugo van der Goes, Campin, Stefan Lochner and Simon Marmion.

A further difficulty comes from the lack of surviving theoretical writing on art, or recorded opinions from any of the major artists. Dürer, in 1512, was the first artist of the era to properly set down in writing his theories of art, followed by Lucas de Heere in 1565 and Karel van Mander in 1604, at the end of his life.

A more probable explanation for the absence of theoretical writing on art outside Italy is that the northern artists did not yet have the language to describe what they valued in images, or saw no point in trying to explain in writing what they had achieved in painting. An irony is that surviving 15th century appreciations of contemporary Netherlandish art is exclusively written by Italians, the best known of which include Cyriacus Ancona in 1449, Bartolommeo Fazio in 1456, and Giovanni Santi in 1482.

Reappraisal

With the advent of Mannerism in the mid-1500s, the Early Netherlandish painters fell out of favour. Little is known of the artists due to paucity of surviving documentation in the official record; very little is known about even the most significant artists. The most significant early research on the painters occurred in the 1920s, in Max Jakob Friedländer's pioneering Meisterwerke der Niederländischen Malerei des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, which was followed by Erwin Panofsky's analysis in the 1950s and 1960s. This research tended to focus on establishing biographies and interpreting the complex iconography, while more recent research (notably that of Lorne Campbell of London's National Gallery) relies on X-ray and infra-red photography to develop an understanding of the techniques and materials used by the painters.

Because there is so little surviving documentation attribution is especially difficult. The problem is compounded by the workshop system, which often produced multiple versions of a single work of its master. It was not until the late 1950s, after the research of Friedländer, Panofsky and Meyer Schapiro that the attributions generally accepted today were established. Even so, the major artists' biographies are, for the most part, scanty reconstructions from scattered mentions in legal records. In many instances their identities are unknown or contested, and names of convenience, were used, largely by Friedländer, to groups of works sharing similarities of style, time and location. The so-called Master of the Legend of the Magdalen, who may have been Pieter van Coninxloo, is one of the more notable examples.

Many surviving panels are fragments from dismantled altarpieces.

Rediscovery

During the 16th century royal art collections grew in prominence. Mary of Hungary and Philip II of Spain were the first modern royals to seek out Netherlandish painters, and both shared a preference for van der Weyden and Bosch. By the early 17th century no collection of repute was complete without Northern European works from the 15th and 16th centuries, however the emphasis tended to be on the Northern Renaissance as a whole, especially Albrecht Dürer, who was by far the most collectable northern artist of the era. Giorgio Vasari in 1550 and Karel van Mander c 1604 placed the Netherlandish painters at the heart of Northern Renaissance art. In his first edition of Vite, Vasari -mistakenly- credited Jan van Eyck with the invention of oil painting. Yet, both writers were instrumental in forming the later international opinion as to which of the region's painters was the most significant, with emphasis on van Eyck as the innovator.

The Netherlandish and Flemish primitives fell out of fashion and were forgotten during the 17th and 18th centuries after the spread of Mannerism. In 1821 Johanna Schopenhauer became interested in the work of Jan van Eyck and his followers, having seen early Netherlandish and Flemish paintings in the collection of the brothers Sulpiz and Melchior Boisserée in Heidelberg. She had to undertake primary archival research because, beyond official legal documents, there was very little historical record of the masters. Schopenhauer published Johann van Eyck und seine Nachfolger in 1822, the same year Gustav Friedrich Waagen published the first modern scholarly work on early Netherlandish painting, Ueber Hubert und Johann can Eyck.

In 1830 the Belgian Revolution split Belgium from the Netherlands of today and created new national divisions between the cities of Bruges (van Eyck and Memling), Antwerp (Matsys), Brussels (van der Weyden and Bruegel) and Leuven (Bouts). The newly-emerged state of Belgium sought to establish a cultural identity, and during the 18th century, Memling's reputation came to equal that of van Eyck. Memling was seen as the older master's match technically, with a deeper emotional resonance. Among later civic collectors, German museums were in the vanguard. Edward Solly's unusually far-sighted 1818 purchase of six panels from van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece hung in Berlin. When in 1848 the paintings of Prince Ludwig of Oettingen-Wallerstein at Schloss Wallerstein were forced onto the market, his cousin Prince Albert arranged a viewing at Kensington Palace; though a catalog of works attributed to the School of Cologne, Jan van Eyck and van der Weyden was compiled by Waagen, there were no other buyers so the Prince Consort purchased them himself. In 1860, when Charles Eastlake purchased for the London National Gallery Rogier van der Weyden's The Magdalen Reading panel from Edmond Beaucousin's "small but choice" collection of early Netherlandish paintings that also included two Robert Campin portraits and panels by Simon Marmion, it was a ground-breaking acquisition.

Scholarship

Significant research on the Netherlandish painters occurred in the 1920s, in German art historian Max Jakob Friedländer's pioneering "Meisterwerke der Niederländischen Malerei des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts". Friedländer's work mainly focused on providing biographical detail about the painters, establishing attribution, and closely examining the major works, an extremely difficult task, given the lack of surviving biographical detail or even historical record about most of the most significant artists.

This was followed by US based German art historian Erwin Panofsky's analysis in the 1950s and 1960s. He wrote in English and for the first time made the work of the German art historians accessible to the English-speaking world, in effect making Netherlandish art a legitimate field of study, and raising it status to something similar to the early Italian renaissance.

Panofsky followed Friedländer's lead but paid more attention to the painting's iconographic meaning, an area in which Friedländer had almost no interest. He was responsible for developing the language with which the Netherlandish paintings are usually described, and made significant advances identifying the rich religious symbolism of the major altarpieces.

More recent art historians have tended to move away from pure study of iconography towards placing the paintings and artists in the context of the social history of their time. According to Craig Harbison, "Social history was becoming increasingly important. Panofsky had never really talked about what kind of people these were."

References

Notes

1. Ward (1994), 19
2. Elkins, John, "On the Arnolfini Portrait and the Lucca Madonna: Did Jan van Eyck Have a Perspectival System?". The Art Bulletin, Vol. 73, No. 1, March, 1991. 53–62
3. By around the start of the 17th century van Eyck was already championed as the "new Apelles" of northern European painting by Karel van Mander.
4. Spronk, 7
5. ^ Janson, H.W. Janson's History of Art: Western Tradition. New York: Prentice Hall, 2006. ISBN 0-13-193455-4
6. Usually through market stalls at fairs
7. Campin is usually identified as the Master of Flemalle. See Campbell, Lorne. "Robert Campin, the Master of Flémalle and the Master of Mérode". The Burlington Magazine, Volume 116, No. 860, Nov. 1974. 634–646
8. Ridderbos et al (2005), 5
9. ^ Campbell (1998), 7
10. Flemish and Netherlandish art were only distinguished from each other from the early 17th century. See Spronk, 7
11. Panofsky (1969), 165
12. ^ Vlieghe, Hans. "Flemish Art, Does It Really Exist?". In Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, vol. 26, 1998. 187–200. Points to recent instances where institutions in the French-speaking parts of Belgium have refused to loan painters to exhibitions labeled "Flemish".
13. Mack, Charles. "Paper Pleasures: Five Centuries of Drawings and Watercolors". Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. 4. ISBN 1-57003-065-0
14. Pächt (1999), 11
15. ^ Kemperdick (2006), in "van Eych to Durer", 55
16. ^ Borchert (2011), 35–36
17. Smith (2004), 89–90
18. Borchert (2011), 117
19. Borchert (2011), 101
20. Borchert (2011), 247
21. van den Brink, Peter; Lohse Belkin, Kristin; van Hout, Nico. Extravagant!: A Forgotten Chapter of Antwerp Painting, 1500–1538 (catalog). Antwerp: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 2005. This was the language of Mannerism popularised by Walter Friedlaender in his book Mannerism and anti-mannerism in Italian painting, one of the first attempts to define the movement.
22. Van Der Elst, Baron. "The Last Flowering of the Middle Ages". Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005. 96. ISBN 1-4191-3806-5
23. Toman (2011), 335
24. Ridderbos et all (2005), 378
25. Panofsky (1969), 163
26. Smith (2004), 58–60
27. The oil was usually derived from flax but also from walnuts and other sources.
28. Jones (2011), 9
29. Smith (2004), 61
30. Jones (2011), 10–11
31. Borchert (2011), 22
32. Borchert (2011), 24
33. Toman (2011), 322
34. From contemporary records, it is estimated that about a third were painted on canvas, but as these were far less durable, most extant works are on wooden panels. See Ridderbos (2005), 297
35. ^ Campbell (1998), 29
36. Ridderbos (2005), 296-97
37. ^ Campbell (1998), 31
38. "The Virgin and Child with Saints Barbara and Catherine". National Gallery, London. Retrieved 23 March 2012
39. Campbell (1998), 29
40. "The Virgin and Child with Saints Barbara and Catherine". National Gallery, London. Retrieved 7 November 2011
41. "The Entombment". National Gallery, London. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
42. ^ Toman (2011), 317
43. ^ Hand et al (2006), 3
44. Toman (2011), 198
45. ^ Campbell (1998), 20
46. see Lisa Deam, "Flemish versus Netherlandish: A Discourse of Nationalism", in Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 1, 1998. 1–33. Also noted (28–29) is the increased interest by art historians in demonstrating the importance of Italian art on Early Netherlandish painters.
47. Described by Panofsky as "the interior viewed through a triple arcade". See Panofsky (1969), 142
48. Panofsky (1969), 142–3
49. Van Eyck used elements of the Greek alphabet in his signature, while a number of Ghent painters taught members of their workshops to read and write
50. Nash (2008), 121
51. Châtelet, Albert. "Early Dutch Painting, Painting in the northern Netherlands in the 15th century". Montreaux: Montreaux Fine Art Publications, 1980. 27-8. ISBN 2-88260-009-7
52. Bruges was an important banking centre to the Medici
53. Smith (2004), 26–27
54. ^ Jones (2011), 25
55. Campbell, 21
56. ^ Jones (2011), 28
57. Jones (2011), 29
58. Wolffe & Hand, xii
59. ^ Nash (2008), 87
60. Cavallo (1993), 164
61. Cleland, Elizabeth Adriana Helena. "More Than Woven Paintings: The Reappearance of Rogier Van Der Weyden's Designs in Tapestry, Volume 2". London: University of London, 2002. i-ix
62. Jones (2011), 30
63. Ward (1994), 11-12
64. Powell, 708
65. ^ Jones (2011), 14
66. Harbison (1991), 159–160
67. MacCulloch (2005), 18
68. MacCulloch (2005), 11-13
69. Jones (2011), 14
70. Borchert (2011), 206
71. Blum (1972), 116
72. Borchert (2011), 35
73. Jacobs, Lynn. Opening Doors: The Early Netherlandish Triptych Reinterpreted. Penn State Press, 2011. ISBN 0-271-04840-9
74. Huizinga (2009 ed.), 224
75. Toman, 319
76. ^ Borchert (2011), 52
77. ^ Campbell (1998), 405
78. Smith (2004), 144
79. Smith (2004), 134
80. Smith (2004), 178
81. Hand et. al (2006), 16
82. Bauman, 4
83. Kemperdick (2006), 19
84. Dürer's father, a goldsmith, spent time as a journeyman in the Netherlands and met with, according to his son, "the great artists". Dürer himself traveled there between 1520–21 and visited Bruges, Ghent and Brussels amongst other places. See Borchert (2011), 83
85. Awch behelt daz gemell dy gestalt der menschen nach jrem sterben See: Rupprich, Hans (ed). "Dürer". Schriftlicher Nachlass, volume 3. Berlin, 1966. 9
86. Smith (2004), 95
87. Rothstein (2005), 51
88. Smith (2004), 96
89. Kemperdick (2006), 21, 92
90. Kemperdick (2006), 21–23
91. Smith (2004), 104-7
92. Kemperdick (2006), 24
93. Kemperdick (2006), 25
94. Borchert (2011), 277–283
95. Harbison (1995), 27
96. ^ "Manuscript Illumination in Northern Europe". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
97. Kren (2010), 9
98. Wieck (1996), 233
99. Nash (2008), 92-3
100. J.P. Getty Museum
101. Nash (2008), 94
102. ^ Harbison (1995), 29
103. Harbison (1995), 29
104. Kren (2010), 83
105. Hand et all (2006), 63
106. Nash (2008), 93
107. Harbison (1995), 47
108. collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters
109. Nash (2008), 264
110. Nash (2008), 266
111. Nash (2008), 88
112. Cavallo (1973), 21
113. ^ Nash (2008), 209
114. Cavallo (1973), 12
115. Cavallo (1973), 21
116. Harbison (1995), 80
117. ^ Nash (2008), 14
118. Harbison (1995), 10
119. Nash (2008), 15
120. Dictionary of Art Historians
121. Van Vaernewijck, Marcus; de Smet de Naeyer, Maurice (ed). "Mémoires d'un patricien gantois du XVIe siècle". Paris: N. Heins, 1905-06. 132
122. Nash (2008), 16-17
123. Borchert (2011), 35
124. Nash (2008), 21
125. ^ Nash (2008), 22 Cite error: The named reference "n22" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
126. Nash (2008), 39
127. Nash, 123
128. Nash, 44
129. Pächt (1997), 16
130. Nash, 22-23
131. Nash (2008), 24
132. Campbell (1998), 114
133. Smith (2004), 411-12
134. The Boisserée collection was bought in 1827, on the advice of Johann Georg von Dillis, to form part of the nucleus of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
135. Ridderbos et al (2005), viii
136. Ridderbos et all (2005), 219–224
137. Smith (2004), 413-16
138. Herrmann, Frank. 1972. The English as Collectors: "Edward Solly", 204
139. John Steegman, 1950. Consort of Taste, excerpted in Frank Herrmann, The English as Collectors, 240; Queen Victoria donated the best of them to the National Gallery after the Prince Consort's death.
140. Silver, 518
141. Ridderbos et al (2005), 248
142. "Craig Harbison". University of Massachusetts. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
143. Buchholz, Sarah R. "A Picture Worth Many Thousand Words". Chronicle, University of Massachusetts, 14 April 2000. Retrieved 15 December 2012.

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• Toman, Rolf (ed). Renaissance: Art and Architecture in Europe during the 15th and 16th Centuries. Bath: Parragon, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4075-5238-5
• Teasdale Smith, Molly. "On the Donor of Jan van Eyck's Rolin Madonna". University of Chicago Press: Gesta Volume 20, No. 1. In Essays in Honor of Harry Bober (1981). 273-279
• Ward, John. "Disguised Symbolism as Enactive Symbolism in Van Eyck's Paintings". Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 15, No. 29, 1994. 9–53
• Wieck, Roger. "Folia Fugitiva: The Pursuit of the Illuminated Manuscript Leaf". The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, Vol. 54, 1996
• Wolff, Martha; Hand, John Oliver. Early Netherlandish painting. National Gallery of Art Washington; Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-521-34016-0

Further reading

• Ainsworth, Maryan. "Intentional Alterations of Early Netherlandish Paintings." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 40, 2005
• Ainsworth, Maryan (ed.) Early Netherlandish Painting at the Crossroads: A Critique of Current Methodologies. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002. ISBN 0-300-09368-3
• Ainsworth, Maryan W. (1994). Petrus Christus: Renaissance master of Bruges. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9780870996948. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help)
• de Vos, Dirk. The Flemish Primitives: The Masterpieces. Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-691-11661-X
• Frere, Jean-Claude. Early Flemish Painting. Vilo International, 1997. ISBN 2-87939-120-2
• Harbison, Craig. The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN 0-13-183322-7
• Pächt, Otto. Van Eyck and the Founders of Early Netherlandish Painting. New York: Harvey Miller, 2000. ISBN 1-872501-28-1
• Silver, Larry. "The State of Research in Northern European Art of the Renaissance Era". The Art Bulletin, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Dec., 1986), pp. 518-535
• Snyder, James. The Northern Renaissance: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2004. ISBN 0-13-189564-8

External links

• Centre for the Study of Fifteenth-Century Painting in the Southern Netherlands and the Principality of Liège List of 1700 works by artist.
• Flemish artists in Italy – Early Netherlandish works painted for Italian patrons in the 15th century.
• Flemish Art Collection: Exotic Primitives – About exotic themes in the paintings of the Flemish Primitives

• Renaissance art
• Medieval art
• Dutch painters
• Flemish art
• Flemish painters
• Northern Renaissance
• Early Netherlandish painting