Flemish and Belgian Art

I

Introduction

Flemish and Belgian Art, the visual arts (particularly painting) of the region known variously as the Southern Netherlands, Flanders, and Belgium. It was not until 1830 that Belgium became an independent country. Before this date it had been part of a loose conglomeration of territories subject to various other states, and at certain times it was politically joined with its northern neighbour, now known as Holland or the Netherlands. Strictly speaking, Flanders was only one of several distinct regions of the Southern Netherlands, but because it was economically and culturally the dominant region, the name is often used as a convenient shorthand term for the whole area, including such neighbouring regions as Artois, Brabant, Hainaut, and Picardy. Up to the beginning of the 17th century, the Northern Netherlands were culturally dependent on the south, so in this context the term “Flemish” is often extended to cover all the Low Countries (today's Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg). It is in this sense that the term is used in this article, which treats the Northern and Southern Netherlands as a cultural unit up to about 1600, and then focuses on the Southern Netherlands; for the art of the Northern Netherlands after 1600, see Dutch Art.

Although Flanders/Belgium is fairly small in area, it has long been one of the most densely populated and productive areas of Europe, its fine seaports and its position close to prosperous neighbours such as England and France helping it to become a great centre of manufacturing and trading from the Middle Ages onwards. This affluence encouraged art, and in the 15th century Flanders developed a great school of painting—the most important of the time outside Italy. Although Flemish art continued to be dominated by painting, it also made a highly individual contribution to architecture in the huge town halls and guild halls that were such a conspicuous expression of the region's wealth. However, the prosperity of Flanders and its situation close to strong neighbours have also had adverse consequences, for the region has seen more warfare than any other part of Europe, often with drastic consequences for art, much of which has been destroyed in times of conflict.

II

The Patronage of Philip the Bold

In 1384 Flanders became part of the territories ruled by Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and it was at about this time that its great tradition in art began. Philip was highly cultivated and one of the leading patrons of his period: the artists who worked for him included the Limbourg brothers, who rank among the most famous of all manuscript illuminators, and Claus Sluter, who was perhaps the greatest sculptor of his time outside Italy.

Sluter came from Haarlem in the Northern Netherlands, but almost all his surviving work is in Dijon (now in France), which was Philip the Bold's capital. Much of Sluter's sculpture was made for the Chartreuse de Champmol, a monastery founded by Philip, the main surviving part being the Well of Moses (1395-1403)—the base of a fountain group. Around it are six full-length figures of prophets, showing the dignity and weighty naturalism of Sluter's style. The Limbourg brothers, who came from Nijmegen, did their greatest works for Philip the Bold's brother, Jean, Duc de Berry, most notably a wonderful Book of Hours known as the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (c. 1413-1416, Musée Condé, Chantilly). It is one of the greatest examples of the International Gothic style, in which aristocratic elegance is combined with loving observation of the details of the natural world.

Another leading painter who worked for Philip was Melchior Broederlam, who came from Ypres. His only surviving works are two wings of a large triptych (1394-1399, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) made for the Chartreuse de Champmol. The central carved and gilded panel of the triptych is by Jacques de Baerze, a woodcarver from Termonde, near Ghent. Broederlam’s paintings are lavishly decorative, but there are naturalistic details in the landscape and figures that look forward to the achievements of the 15th-century Flemish School.

III

The 15th Century

Flemish painters in the 15th century combined something of the exquisite detail of manuscript illuminators such as the Limbourgs with something of the earthy weightiness of Sluter's sculpture to create a new naturalistic style. This naturalism was bound up with their mastery of oil paint, which enabled them to produce rich and subtle effects of colour and texture that were impossible with older techniques. Oil paints of a sort had been used centuries before this, but Flemish painters of the early 15th century greatly refined the methods of their forebears. Pre-eminent among these artists was Jan van Eyck, who brought oil painting to a pitch of refinement that has rarely been equalled, and who from his own time to the present day has always ranked as the most famous early Flemish painter.

Van Eyck spent most of his career working for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (grandson of Philip the Bold), who ruled his territories for almost half a century (1419-1467), presiding over a golden age in the arts. The most celebrated of van Eyck's works, a huge altarpiece (completed 1432) in Ghent Cathedral, is one of the most discussed works in the history of art, for an inscription on the frame states that it was begun by his brother Hubert (who evidently died in 1426) and there has been much controversy about how far he had progressed before Jan took over. It is one of the most ambitious and complex altarpieces ever painted, as well as one of the most beautiful, consisting of 12 panels (8 of them double-sided, making 20 images in all) depicting an extraordinary wealth of subjects in breathtaking detail. The central panel shows the Lamb of God (Christ) being adored by throngs of figures, and the other panels include full-length nudes of Adam and Eve and portraits of Joos Vyd (the wealthy citizen of Ghent who commissioned the work) and his wife Elizabeth.

Among Jan van Eyck's other paintings, the best-known is probably the double portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami (1434, National Gallery, London), popularly known as “The Arnolfini Marriage”, although it is by no means certain that it depicts a marriage ceremony. Arnolfini was an Italian merchant who lived in Bruges (a major centre of international trade), and van Eyck also spent much of his career there.

The most important of van Eyck's contemporaries was Robert Campin, who was the leading painter of his day in Tournai. His style was less sophisticated than van Eyck's, but he excelled in vigour of form and the expression of emotion—qualities he passed on to his pupil Rogier van der Weyden, who ranks alongside van Eyck as one of the greatest painters of the century. Van der Weyden was much more ardent in approach than the coolly objective van Eyck, his dramatic power and sense of pathos being particularly evident in his scenes of Christ's Passion. The best known is probably the Descent from the Cross (c. 1435-1440, Prado, Madrid). Van der Weyden spent most of his career in Brussels, which in his time became one of Philip the Good's court cities and a major cultural centre. He ran a busy workshop that exported many paintings, spreading his reputation and his influence widely—with van Eyck, he was one of the few northern European artists of the time who was known and admired in Italy.

The other outstanding Flemish painters of the 15th century included Dieric Bouts, who was the principal painter of his day in Louvain (Leuven), Hugo van der Goes, who worked in Ghent and then in a monastery near Brussels (where he was a lay brother), and Hans Memling, who was German by birth but settled in Bruges. Bouts was mainly a painter of religious works and portraits in a sensitive, poetic style featuring solemn and exaggeratedly slim figures (The Entombment, c. 1450-1460, National Gallery, London). Van der Goes is principally famous for one work, the huge Portinari Altarpiece (c. 1475, Uffizi, Florence), which was commissioned by an Italian client for a church in Florence and was influential in spreading knowledge of the Flemish oil technique in Italy. Memling specialized in sweet and pious religious works that made him probably the most financially successful Flemish painter of his time (Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, 1479, Memling Museum, Bruges); he was also a fine portraitist.

A few outstanding painters also worked in outlying areas (in what is now the Netherlands), notably Geertgen tot Sint Jans and Hieronymus Bosch. Almost nothing is known about Geertgen other that he worked in Haarlem and died young. However, he was one of the most charming and idiosyncratic painters of the 15th century, his work showing exquisite tenderness of feeling and remarkable sensitivity in handling of light effects (The Nativity, at Night, c. 1480-1490, National Gallery, London).

Bosch's paintings are even more personal and distinctive, for he created images that haunt the imagination with their depiction of a weird world full of grotesque fantasy creatures (The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1500, Prado, Madrid). As far as is known, Bosch spent all his life in 's-Hertogenbosch, which at the time was part of the Duchy of Brabant. He was the town's leading painter and a respected member of a local religious fellowship, but because his paintings look so strange to modern eyes, some writers have speculated that he was involved in alchemy, heresy, or witchcraft. Such theories are misguided, for there can be little doubt that Bosch adhered to the orthodox religious ideas of his time. However, he expressed these ideas in an extraordinarily imaginative way, incorporating colourful images from the popular culture of his time (much of which is now opaque to us), including proverbs and religious plays and pageants.

Some impressive Gothic churches were built in Flanders, but Flemish architecture of the late Middle Ages is best represented by the spectacular town halls and guild halls that were erected in several cities as symbols of their wealth and prestige. One of the finest (begun in 1402) is Brussels town hall, a huge, amazingly ornate Gothic structure that dominates the city's main square, the Grand Place. Also well known is the market hall in Bruges, which has a magnificent tower (completed 1482), about 108 m (353 ft) tall.

IV

The 16th Century

For much of the 15th century Bruges was the leading port in Flanders, but the river connecting it with the North Sea gradually became blocked with silt, restricting the passage of ships, and by 1500 it had lost its position to Antwerp, which had become the most important centre of international trade in northern Europe. During the 16th century Antwerp also became the leading cultural centre in Flanders, supporting many printing presses and a large number of artists (between 1500 and 1600 almost 700 painters were registered with the Guild of St Luke). In this period ideas from Renaissance Italy made an increasing impact, and painting became more varied in subject.

The artist who stands at the head of Antwerp's great tradition in painting is Quentin Massys, who had settled in the city by 1491 (he was born in Louvain). In certain ways he upheld the values of his forebears, but he introduced new ideas and themes, and he may well have visited Italy, for his work often suggests knowledge of Renaissance art. His St Anne Altarpiece (1507, Musées Royaux, Brussels), for example, has echoes of Leonardo da Vinci. One of the most forward-looking aspects of his art was his interest in genre (everyday life) scenes, for this was to become an important strand in Flemish painting: his satirical pictures of avaricious tax collectors and suchlike (The Moneychanger and His Wife, 1514, Musée du Louvre, Paris), soon found imitators, for example Marinus van Reymerswaele. In his religious works Massys sometimes collaborated with his friend Joachim Patinir, who painted the landscape backgrounds (Temptation of St Anthony, c. 1520, Prado, Madrid). Patinir was one of the major pioneers of landscape as an independent subject, and it too came to occupy an important place in Flemish painting.

One of the leading contemporaries of Massys and Patinir in Antwerp was Jan Gossaert (also known as Mabuse), who visited Rome in 1508-1509 and was regarded as the first painter to introduce to Flanders the Italian fashion for painting nude figures and mythological subjects. During his stay in Rome he made drawings of antique sculpture, but he never thoroughly digested their lessons and his paintings of the nude are noted for their exaggerated musculature (Venus and Cupid, 1521, Musées Royaux, Brussels). However, his pupil Jan van Scorel, who worked in Rome in the early 1520s, assimilated Italian ideas much more fluently (Presentation in the Temple, c. 1535, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). For a time he was curator of the papal collection of antiquities, which gave him the opportunity to study ancient sculpture closely. After his return north in 1524, he worked principally in Utrecht in the Northern Netherlands and he was the leading painter of the day in the region. His output consisted mainly of religious works, but he was also a fine portraitist.

The influence of classical and Renaissance art was introduced to Flanders not only through the channel of artists visiting Italy, but also through prints (which had wide circulation) and other works of art, especially as Antwerp grew into a major centre of the international art trade. However, the most important and influential Renaissance works of art to be seen in Flanders in the 16th century found their way to Brussels rather than Antwerp—Raphael's cartoons for tapestries in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, which in 1516 were sent to the workshop of Pieter van Aelst to be woven. Brussels at this time was acknowledged to produce the best tapestries in the world, and it continued to be a major centre for their manufacture until the 18th century. Raphael's cartoons had a great impact on artists in Brussels, including Bernard van Orley, who was the leading painter there at this time. However, he imitated their motifs very superficially, never grasping the noble dignity of Raphael's designs. His best-known painting is the Job Altarpiece (1521, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels).

Although these Italianate influences were strong, many Flemish painters remained true to their roots. The greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century, Pieter Bruegel, made a lengthy visit to Italy in the early 1550s, going as far south as Sicily, but the art he saw there made very little impact on his own work. He was inspired much more by the mountain landscapes he experienced when crossing the Alps: after his return north, one of his first commissions was the design of a set of 12 engravings of mountain views (c. 1555-1558) and mountains also feature in the background of many of his paintings.

Bruegel lived in Antwerp until 1563 and up to this time a good deal of his work consisted of designing engravings. However, after he moved to Brussels in 1563 (he lived there until his death in 1569) he concentrated on painting, his work including some wonderful scenes of peasant life, among them the celebrated Hunters in the Snow (1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Such paintings, with their warm human sympathy and majestic depiction of nature, had a lasting influence on the Flemish traditions of genre and landscape painting.

Bruegel had two painter sons (both infants at the time of his early death): Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel (they spelled their surname with an 'h', though their father had dropped it). Pieter the Younger made excellent copies and variants of his father's highly popular peasant scenes; Jan produced landscapes and flower pictures in a lush, highly detailed style, very different from his father's (Bouquet with Irises, c. 1600, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

There were several good Flemish portraitists in the 16th century, the most notable being Anthonis Mor, who had an internationally successful career, working in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and also England, where he painted Queen Mary (1554, Prado, Madrid). He was particularly influential in Spain, where his dignified, rather severe style set the tone for court portraiture for many years. There were close links between Flemish and Spanish art at this time, for in 1477 the Netherlands had become part of the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1556 Philip II of Spain had inherited the territory from his father, Emperor Charles V.

Initially, Philip ruled all of the Netherlands, but in 1568 a revolt began in the northern provinces, which eventually achieved independence as the Dutch Republic. In 1576 Spanish troops stationed in Antwerp rioted because of lack of pay, burning buildings and massacring thousands of people, and this caused the city to rebel against Spain, joining the Northern Netherlands in the struggle for independence. However, after a long siege Antwerp was captured by the Spaniards in 1585, and from this point it became a bulwark of Catholicism and Spanish power in the war against the northern neighbour. Because of the city's grievous suffering, Antwerp's population greatly declined (after the siege it was about 50,000, roughly half of what it had been 20 years earlier) and Amsterdam took its place as northern Europe's main port. Although it did not regain its pre-eminence as a port, Antwerp returned to great heights as a cultural centre in the 17th century, when it was the home of the dominant Flemish artist of the age, Peter Paul Rubens.