Early Netherlandish Painting 1500 - 1600

Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists, sometimes known as the Flemish Primitives, active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance; especially in the flourishing cities of Bruges, Ghent, Tournai and Brussels Their work follows the International Gothic style and begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the early 1420s It lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, although many scholars extend it to the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568 (Max J Friedländer's acclaimed surveys run through Pieter Bruegel the Elder) Early Netherlandish painting coincides with the Early and High Italian Renaissance but is seen as an independent artistic culture, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in Italy Because these painters represent the culmination of the northern European medieval artistic heritage and the incorporation of Renaissance ideals, they are sometimes categorised as belonging to both the Early Renaissance and Late Gothic

The major Netherlandish painters include Campin, van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Hieronymus Bosch These artists made significant advances in natural representation and illusionism, and their work typically features complex iconography Their subjects are usually religious scenes or small portraits, with narrative painting or mythological subjects being relatively rare Landscape is often richly described but relegated as a background detail before the early 16th century The painted works are generally oil on panel, either as single works or more complex portable or fixed altarpieces in the form of diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs The period is also noted for its sculpture, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass and carved retables

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The first generations of artists were active during the height of Burgundian influence in Europe, when the Low Countries became the political and economic centre of Northern Europe, noted for its crafts and luxury goods Assisted by the workshop system, panels and a variety of crafts were sold to foreign princes or merchants through private engagement or market stalls A majority were destroyed during waves of iconoclasm in the 16th and 17th centuries; today only a few thousand examples survive Early northern art in general was not well regarded from the early 17th to the mid-19th century, and the painters and their works were not well documented until the mid-19th century Art historians spent almost another century determining attributions, studying iconography, and establishing bare outlines of even the major artists' lives Attribution of some of the most significant works is still debated

The term "Early Netherlandish art" applies broadly to painters active during the 15th and 16th centuries in the northern European areas controlled by the Dukes of Burgundy and later the Habsburg dynasty These artists became an early driving force behind the Northern Renaissance and the move away from the Gothic style In this political and art-historical context, the north follows the Burgundian lands which straddled areas that encompass parts of modern France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands

he Netherlandish artists have been known by a variety of terms "Late Gothic" is an early designation which emphasises continuity with the art of the Middle Ages In the early 20th century, the artists were variously referred to in English as the "Ghent-Bruges school" or the "Old Netherlandish school" "Flemish Primitives" is a traditional art-historical term borrowed from the French primitifs flamands that became popular after the famous exhibition in Bruges in 1902 and remains in use today, especially in Dutch and German In this context, "primitive" does not refer to a perceived lack of sophistication, but rather identifies the artists as originators of a new tradition in painting Erwin Panofsky preferred the term ars nova ("new art"), which linked the movement with innovative composers of music such as Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois, who were favoured by the Burgundian court over artists attached to the lavish French court When the Burgundian dukes established centres of power in the Netherlands, they brought with them a more cosmopolitan outlook According to Otto Pächt a simultaneous shift in art began sometime between 1406 and 1420 when a "revolution took place in painting"; a "new beauty" in art emerged, one that depicted the visible rather than the metaphysical world
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