Early Netherlandish
The painters of fifteenth-century Flanders who invented oil painting: Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, and Dieric Bouts, working in an art of precision and devotion.
Early Netherlandish Painting: The Invention of Oil
In the fifteenth century, the region of Flanders, now part of Belgium and the Netherlands, produced a group of painters whose technical innovations changed Western art. They did not call themselves Early Netherlandish painters. That label was invented by nineteenth-century art historians. They called themselves painters, and they worked in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, and Tournai. The key innovation was oil paint. Before the 1430s, European painters used egg tempera, a medium made by mixing pigments with egg yolk. Tempera dries quickly, produces a flat, matte surface, and cannot be blended on the canvas. It is good for sharp lines and bright colors but bad for subtle transitions of tone. Oil paint, made by mixing pigments with linseed oil, dries slowly. It can be blended on the canvas. It can be applied in thin, transparent layers called glazes, which produce a luminosity and depth that tempera cannot match. The Early Netherlandish painters were the first to exploit these properties fully, and the results were unlike anything European painting had produced before.
Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464)
Van der Weyden was the most influential Early Netherlandish painter. He was born in Tournai, trained under Robert Campin, and became the official painter of the city of Brussels in 1436. His work was exported across Europe. He painted for the Duke of Burgundy, the most powerful ruler in the Low Countries, and his paintings were sent as diplomatic gifts to Spain, Italy, and Scandinavia. His portrait of Francesco d'Este, available in our store, shows an Italian nobleman in a red robe against a dark blue background. The portrait is small, about 12 by 8 inches, and was probably painted as a diplomatic gift. The sitter's face is rendered with a precision that makes you feel you are looking at a real person. The texture of the skin, the stubble on the chin, the slight asymmetry of the face, all are observed and recorded with an accuracy that was unprecedented in the 1450s. Van der Weyden's portraits are not flattering. He painted people as they looked, not as they wanted to look. His sitters have wrinkles, bags under their eyes, and thin lips. This honesty was new. Italian Renaissance portraits of the same period idealized their subjects, smoothing wrinkles and straightening features. Van der Weyden did the opposite. He painted what he saw, and what he saw was specific, individual, and human.
Hans Memling (1430-1494)
Memling was born in Germany, probably in Seligenstadt, and worked in the Netherlands. He settled in Bruges, the richest city in Flanders, where he became the leading portrait painter of his generation. His clients included Italian merchants, English traders, and Spanish aristocrats who visited Bruges on business. His portrait of a young man, available in our store, shows the sitter behind a parapet with his hands resting on the edge. The painting is calm and precise. The young man's expression is neutral. His clothing is rendered with attention to texture and weight. Memling was less emotionally intense than Van der Weyden, but his technical skill was extraordinary. The surface of a Memling painting is so smooth that you cannot see individual brushstrokes. The paint looks like it was applied by a machine, not by a human hand. Memling ran a large workshop in Bruges and produced paintings for export across Europe. His work was so popular in Italy that Florentine painters including Sandro Botticelli adopted elements of his style, particularly the landscape backgrounds visible through windows in his portraits.
Dieric Bouts (1415-1475)
Bouts was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands and worked in Leuven, a university town in Flanders. He was less famous than Van der Weyden or Memling, but his work shows the same Early Netherlandish qualities: precise observation, luminous color, and a devotional seriousness that reflects the religious culture of fifteenth-century Flanders. His "Saint John the Baptist," available in our store, shows the saint in a red robe against a dark background. The painting is a devotional panel, meant for private prayer. The figure is static, frontal, and solemn. The paint surface is smooth. The colors are deep and saturated. The painting was meant to be looked at for long periods, as an aid to meditation, and its quiet intensity suits that purpose.
The Technique
Early Netherlandish painting was built on oil glazes. The painter began with a white ground on a wooden panel. On this ground, he drew the composition in detail. Then he applied thin layers of oil paint, one over the other, building up the colors and tones gradually. Each glaze was transparent enough that the layers beneath showed through, creating a depth of color that a single layer of paint could not produce. This process was slow. A painting could take months or years to complete. The painter had to wait for each glaze to dry before applying the next one. But the results were extraordinary. The surface of an Early Netherlandish painting has a luminosity that comes from within, as if the painting is lit from behind. This effect is impossible to reproduce in photographs. You have to see the paintings in person. The Early Netherlandish painters also used magnifying lenses to paint details that are invisible to the naked eye. Jan van Eyck, the first master of the technique, painted individual hairs on a dog's coat, individual threads in a carpet, and individual leaves on a tree that is two inches tall in the painting. This precision was not showing off. It was theological. The Early Netherlandish painters believed that every detail of the natural world was created by God, and that painting every detail was a form of devotion.
Why Early Netherlandish Painting Matters
Early Netherlandish painting is the foundation of Northern European art. The technique of oil painting, developed in Flanders in the 1430s, spread across Europe and became the dominant medium for painting for the next five hundred years. Every oil painting made since then, from Titian to Rembrandt to Van Gogh, uses a technique that was invented by Early Netherlandish painters. The Early Netherlandish painters also established a tradition of observational painting that runs through Northern European art like a thread. From Van der Weyden to Durer to Rembrandt to Vermeer to Courbet, Northern painters have prioritized observation over idealization. They have painted what they see, not what they think they should see. This tradition starts in Flanders in the fifteenth century.
Where to See Early Netherlandish Paintings
The Groeningemuseum in Bruges has a major collection of Early Netherlandish painting, including works by Van der Weyden, Memling, and Jan van Eyck. The Groeningemuseum also has Memling's "Moreel Triptych" and several of his portraits. The Prado Museum in Madrid has Van der Weyden's "Descent from the Cross," one of the most important Early Netherlandish paintings. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has works by Memling and Bouts. The National Gallery in London holds Van der Weyden's "Portrait of a Lady" and Jan van Eyck's "Arnolfini Portrait." The Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels has a significant collection.
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