Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Flemish Primitives
Despite the “Primitive” label, the Low Countries of the 1400s
(along with Venice and Florence) produced the most refined
art in Europe. Here are some common features of Flemish
Primitive art:
•
Primitive 3-D Perspective:
Expect unnaturally cramped-
looking rooms, oddly slanted tables, and flat, cardboard-
cutout people with stiff posture. Yes, these works are
more primitive (hence the label) than those with the later
Italian Renaissance perspective.
•
realism:
Everyday bankers and clothmakers in their
Sunday best are painted with clinical, warts-and-all preci-
sion. Even saints and heavenly visions are brought down
to earth.
•
Details:
Like meticulous Bruges craftsmen, painters
used fine-point brushes to capture almost microscopic
details—flower petals, wrinkled foreheads, intricately
patterned clothes, the sparkle in a ruby. The closer you
get to a painting, the better it looks.
•
Oil Painted on Wood:
They were the pioneers of new-
fangled oil-based paint (while Italy still used egg-yolk
tempera), working on wood, before canvas became
popular.
•
Portraits and Altarpieces:
Wealthy merchants and cler-
gymen paid to have themselves painted either alone or
mingling with saints.
•
symbolism:
In earlier times, everyone understood that a
dog symbolized fidelity, a lily meant chastity, and a rose
was love.
•
materialism:
Rich Flanders celebrated the beauty of
luxury goods—the latest Italian dresses, jewels, carpets,
oak tables—and the ordinary beauty that radiates from
flesh-and-blood people.
tightly, bunched into horn-like hairnets, and draped with a head-
dress. Stray hairs along the perimeter were plucked to achieve the
high forehead look.
This simple portrait is revolutionary—one of history's first
individual portraits that wasn't of a saint, king, duke, or pope, and
wasn't part of a religious work. It signals the advent of humanism,
celebrating the glory of ordinary people. Van Eyck proudly signed
the work on the original frame, with his motto saying he painted it
“
als ik kan
”
(ALC IXH KAN)
...“as good as I can.”
rogier van der Weyden (c. 1399-1464)—
St. Luke Drawing
the Virgin's Portrait
(c. 1435)
Rogier van der Weyden, the other giant among the Flemish
