Flemish Primitives: A Detailed Look at the Masters of Early Netherlandish Painting
School of the Flemish Primitives
In the second half of the fifteenth century and into the beginning of the sixteenth century, a number of factors contributed to a prodigious artistic flowering in the cities of Flanders. The influence of Flemish painting spread throughout Europe. In Spain, for example, the painting of these years would be called the Hispano-Flemish style.
A) Characteristics
Artists known today as the Flemish Primitives developed their own painting style, characterized by an exaggerated naturalism and outstanding attention to detail, which immediately led to international recognition. Their grasp of reality is evident through:
- The Details: This is painting meant to be seen up close. The artist is interested in everything, recreating people alongside the small things of everyday life: objects, tables, cloth, etc.
- Texture: They reproduced these details meticulously, rendering folds in fabric and the hard glint of metal.
- Landscape: Flemish painters were the creators of wide and luminous landscapes, and their interiors represent the first full expressions of privacy.
- Light and Space: They created pictorial space through the diffusion of light on objects.
Their works, mostly oil paintings on panel, were obtained by careful layering of transparent and bright colors. They marked a milestone in the history of art and, along with Italian art, laid the foundations of modern European art.
The Flemish, in connection with this, were also the creators of easel painting, simplifying the altarpiece by reducing it to a single panel.
They developed scenes of everyday life within religious subjects, which were the majority, and portrayed the patrons with Christ, the Virgin, or saints. This introduced the portrait through the image of the donor, until it finally became a genre in itself.
They loved scenery, which is seen in the horizon lights or the glare from water.
The pictorial dominance was facilitated by the emergence of a new clientele; the bourgeois citizen became a promoter of artistic works.
In summary, their characteristics fall between the Renaissance (the treatment of light and landscape) and the Gothic (static figures, the poor relationship between figures, usually represented frontally, and the premium placed on detail).
B) Main Examples
A first generation of painters is represented by the brothers Jan and Hubert Van Eyck, Rogier Van Der Weyden, Robert Campin, and Dieric Bouts.
In a second generation of Flemish painters, which extends to the early sixteenth century, painters like Hans Memling, Gerard David, and Hieronymus Bosch stand out.
Van Eyck Brothers
The brothers Van Eyck, Hubert and Jan, initiators of the Flemish school, are known in particular for their extensive use of oil.
In the work of Jan van Eyck, the most prominent of the two brothers, elements of a tradition in many ways still medieval combine with risky new formal and iconographic elements of surprising modernity, gradually introduced into his work.
+ Ghent Altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb):
The work of Jan and Hubert van Eyck, painted like a collection of messages, allegories, and evangelical recreations. The polyptych consists of 12 panels in the open position and eight in the back. The central panel represents the Adoration of the Lamb, symbolizing God and worshipped above an altar, symbolizing the Eucharist. Two semicircles of characters surround the fountain, kneeling in adoration: the prophets, along with the patriarchs to the left, and the apostles to the right along with Popes and bishops. Also outstanding are the upper extreme panels, representing Adam and Eve, naked but covering their intimacies after original sin. These are two beautiful and exquisitely furnished nudes, illuminated against a dark background. All the background scenes have a beautiful and delicate landscape with trees of varied species, flowers, meadows, all of this extremely detailed. Finally, the intermediate panels contain the singing angels and musical angels, in which the treatment of details in the clothing, hair, and faces is impressive.
+ The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin:
Jan van Eyck introduced a new iconography. The Virgin, instead of being enthroned in the center, is in a lateral position, sharing equally with the donor the full positive field of the panel. The whole composition, from the distribution and realism of the figures and everyday objects that surround them, to the appearance of the cityscape in the background, and the equal treatment of the figure of the donor and the Virgin, has a clear intent of originality.
+ Man in a Turban:
It is considered a self-portrait, with impressive realism.
Van Eyck’s technical expertise in modeling figures and objects with light and color, and the detailed representation of surfaces and textures, summarize the style of an artist who served as a model for many generations of painters.
Rogier Van der Weyden
As a great Flemish painter, he devoted special attention to detail, the vivid colors, and the realism of the figures. To this must be added the drama that characterized his scenes, as an essential element of his painting.
+ The Descent from the Cross (Pietà):
Striking for the careful study of the composition of a large group of figures housed in a small and short space. The whole seems enclosed by two brackets: on the left and right, Saint John and Mary Magdalene, serving as the shaft of the cross, and in the center of the composition the two parallel figures, arranged diagonally, Christ and Mary. The sense of drama and contained sadness in the faces of the characters made Van der Weyden one of the most tragic artists of the Flemish school.
+ The Crucifixion:
A characteristic note of his art is the abandonment of the landscape and the real world, although after a trip to Italy he included it again. But in general, a certain archaism can be seen in his work, as in this example, where the sinuous elongated shapes are reminiscent of the International Gothic style.
Joachim Patinir
One of the most important features of Patinir is the special role he attaches to the landscape in his compositions. The plot and the characters in his paintings are accessories, merely a pretext for developing his backgrounds and his broad, bright, and beautiful views.
This characteristic of Patinir can be observed in two of his masterpieces:
+ Rest on the Flight into Egypt:
The religious theme is a grand excuse for a landscaped setting.
+ Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx:
With identical characteristics, but combining Christian and pagan motifs.
Hieronymus Bosch
One of his favorite inspirations was popular culture: proverbs, sayings, customs and legends, and the superstitions of the people gave him multiple themes to address in his paintings.
As technical characteristics, we can underline the thoroughness of detail, the love of variety and richness of color, as well as the care for perspective.
But in his work, the originality in the treatment of the subject stands out above all. By giving everyday objects a different meaning, he created at times delirious scenes full of symbolism, with disturbing, absurd, and fantastic images. All his pictures are imbued with a sense of burlesque humor.
+ The Garden of Earthly Delights:
This is the most famous painting, the most studied, and also the most enigmatic and difficult to interpret of those painted by Hieronymus Bosch. In the left panel, it shows the creation of man; in the central panel, the pleasures and sins of the world; and on the right, the infernal punishment for all those sins. It is seen as a moralizing satire on the fate of human nature.
+ The Haywain Triptych:
A very evocative triptych whose central panel shows a huge wagon full of hay and a host of characters. On top of the wagon, a court scene unfolds, with lovers, music, and an angel and a devil. According to all experts, the theme refers to a verse from Isaiah: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades.” So we are looking at an allegory of the transience of goods and material pleasures. Everyone, from all social classes – kings and bishops, ordinary people – wants to get on the earthly and material happiness represented by the wagon. At the foot of the wagon, we see the capital sins. The wealth of detail is overwhelming. In the side panels, the creation of man, paradise and expulsion (left) and hell (right) are displayed in a somewhat different treatment than in The Garden of Earthly Delights.
+ The Adoration of the Magi:
The Virgin holds the Child on her lap, while the Kings make the offering of gifts. You can see precise details. Attention is drawn to the character who is naked at the entrance to the cabin with a sore on his leg, symbolizing the Antichrist, according to some views. The side panels are dedicated to the donors, accompanied by Saint Peter and Saint Agnes.