Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting
Encyclopedia
Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting represents the 16th century
response to Italian Renaissance art in the Low Countries
. These artists, who span from the Antwerp Mannerists
and Hieronymus Bosch at the start of the century to the late Northern Mannerists such as Hendrik Goltzius
and Joachim Wtewael
at the end, drew on both the recent innovations of Italian painting and the local traditions of the Early Netherlandish artists
. Antwerp was the most important artistic centre in the region. Many artists worked for European courts, including Bosch, whose fantastic painted images left a long legacy. Jan Mabuse
, Maarten van Heemskerck and Frans Floris
were all instrumental in adopting Italian models and incorporating them into their own artistic language. Dutch and Flemish painters were also instrumental in establishing new subjects such as landscape painting and genre painting
. Joachim Patinir
, for example, played an important role in developing landscape, while Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Aertsen
helped popularise genre painting
.
influences begin to show on Early Netherlandish painting
around 1500, but in many ways the older style was remarkably persistent. Antwerp Mannerism
is a term for painters showing some Italian influence, but mainly continuing the style and subjects of the older masters. Hieronymus Bosch is a highly individual artist, whose work is strange and full of seemingly irrational imagery, making it difficult to interpret. Most of all it seems surprisingly modern, introducing a world of dreams that seems more related to Gothic art
than the Italian Renaissance, although some Venetian prints of the same period show a comparable degree of fantasy. The Romanists
were the next phase of influence, adopting Italian styles in a far more thorough way.
After 1550 the Flemish and Dutch painters begin to show more interest in nature and beauty "in itself", leading to a style that incorporates Renaissance elements, but remains far from the elegant lightness of Italian Renaissance art,
and directly leads to the themes of the great Flemish and Dutch Baroque
painters: landscapes, still lifes and genre painting - scenes from everyday life.
This evolution is seen in the works of Joachim Patinir
and Pieter Aertsen
, but the true genius among these painters was Pieter Brueghel the Elder
, well known for his depictions of nature and everyday life, showing a preference for the natural condition of man, choosing to depict the peasant instead of the prince.
The Fall of Icarus
(now in fact considered a copy of a Bruegel work), although highly atypical in many ways, combines several elements of Northern Renaissance
painting. It hints at the renewed interest for antiquity (the Icarus
legend), but the hero Icarus is hidden away in the background. The main actors in the painting are nature itself and, most prominently, the peasant, who does not even look up from his plough when Icarus falls. Brueghel shows man as an anti-hero, comical and sometimes grotesque.
16th century
As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century lasted from 1501 to 1600. It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred....
response to Italian Renaissance art in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
. These artists, who span from the Antwerp Mannerists
Antwerp Mannerism
Antwerp Mannerism is the name given to the style of a largely anonymous group of painters from Antwerp in the beginning of the 16th century. The style bore no direct relation to Renaissance or Italian Mannerism, but the name suggests a peculiarity that was a reaction to the "classic" style of the...
and Hieronymus Bosch at the start of the century to the late Northern Mannerists such as Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius
Hendrik Goltzius , was a Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the "exuberance" of his compositions. According to A...
and Joachim Wtewael
Joachim Wtewael
Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael , was a notable Dutch painter and engraver.Wtewael was born and died in Utrecht, where he began his career engraving glass with his father...
at the end, drew on both the recent innovations of Italian painting and the local traditions of the Early Netherlandish artists
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...
. Antwerp was the most important artistic centre in the region. Many artists worked for European courts, including Bosch, whose fantastic painted images left a long legacy. Jan Mabuse
Jan Mabuse
Jan Mabuse was the name adopted by the Flemish painter Jan Gossaert; or Jennyn van Hennegouwe , as he called himself when he matriculated in the guild of St Luke, at Antwerp, in 1503.-Biography:Little is known of his early life...
, Maarten van Heemskerck and Frans Floris
Frans Floris
Frans Floris, or more correctly Frans de Vriendt, called Floris was a Flemish painter. He was a member of a large family trained to the study of art in Flanders.-Biography:...
were all instrumental in adopting Italian models and incorporating them into their own artistic language. Dutch and Flemish painters were also instrumental in establishing new subjects such as landscape painting and genre painting
Genre painting
Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...
. Joachim Patinir
Joachim Patinir
Joachim Patinir, also called de Patiner , was a Flemish Northern Renaissance history and landscape painter from the area of modern Wallonia...
, for example, played an important role in developing landscape, while Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Aertsen
Pieter Aertsen
Pieter Aertsen , called Lange Pier because of his height, was a Dutch historical painter. He was born and died in Amsterdam, and painted there and in Antwerp, though his genre scenes were influential in Italy.-Biography:...
helped popularise genre painting
Genre painting
Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...
.
Stylistic evolution
Italian RenaissanceItalian Renaissance painting
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring within the area of present-day Italy, which was at that time divided into many political areas...
influences begin to show on Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...
around 1500, but in many ways the older style was remarkably persistent. Antwerp Mannerism
Antwerp Mannerism
Antwerp Mannerism is the name given to the style of a largely anonymous group of painters from Antwerp in the beginning of the 16th century. The style bore no direct relation to Renaissance or Italian Mannerism, but the name suggests a peculiarity that was a reaction to the "classic" style of the...
is a term for painters showing some Italian influence, but mainly continuing the style and subjects of the older masters. Hieronymus Bosch is a highly individual artist, whose work is strange and full of seemingly irrational imagery, making it difficult to interpret. Most of all it seems surprisingly modern, introducing a world of dreams that seems more related to Gothic art
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
than the Italian Renaissance, although some Venetian prints of the same period show a comparable degree of fantasy. The Romanists
Romanism (painting)
Romanism was the style of painting of a group of artists in the late 15th and early 16th century from the Netherlands who began to visit Italy and started to incorporate Renaissance influences in their work. The greatest artist in the style was Jan Mabuse...
were the next phase of influence, adopting Italian styles in a far more thorough way.
After 1550 the Flemish and Dutch painters begin to show more interest in nature and beauty "in itself", leading to a style that incorporates Renaissance elements, but remains far from the elegant lightness of Italian Renaissance art,
and directly leads to the themes of the great Flemish and Dutch Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
painters: landscapes, still lifes and genre painting - scenes from everyday life.
This evolution is seen in the works of Joachim Patinir
Joachim Patinir
Joachim Patinir, also called de Patiner , was a Flemish Northern Renaissance history and landscape painter from the area of modern Wallonia...
and Pieter Aertsen
Pieter Aertsen
Pieter Aertsen , called Lange Pier because of his height, was a Dutch historical painter. He was born and died in Amsterdam, and painted there and in Antwerp, though his genre scenes were influential in Italy.-Biography:...
, but the true genius among these painters was Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes . He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel" to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but he is also the one generally meant when the context does...
, well known for his depictions of nature and everyday life, showing a preference for the natural condition of man, choosing to depict the peasant instead of the prince.
The Fall of Icarus
Landscape With The Fall of Icarus
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas long thought to be by Pieter Bruegel, although following technical examinations in 1996, that attribution is regarded as very doubtful, and it is now seen as a good early copy by an unknown artist of Bruegel's original, perhaps...
(now in fact considered a copy of a Bruegel work), although highly atypical in many ways, combines several elements of Northern Renaissance
Northern Renaissance
The Northern Renaissance is the term used to describe the Renaissance in northern Europe, or more broadly in Europe outside Italy. Before 1450 Italian Renaissance humanism had little influence outside Italy. From the late 15th century the ideas spread around Europe...
painting. It hints at the renewed interest for antiquity (the Icarus
Icarus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. The main story told about Icarus is his attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax...
legend), but the hero Icarus is hidden away in the background. The main actors in the painting are nature itself and, most prominently, the peasant, who does not even look up from his plough when Icarus falls. Brueghel shows man as an anti-hero, comical and sometimes grotesque.
Painters
- Pieter AertsenPieter AertsenPieter Aertsen , called Lange Pier because of his height, was a Dutch historical painter. He was born and died in Amsterdam, and painted there and in Antwerp, though his genre scenes were influential in Italy.-Biography:...
- Simon BeningSimon BeningSimon Bening was a 16th century miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school, the last major artist of the Netherlandish tradition....
- Hieronymus Bosch
- Pieter Brueghel the ElderPieter Brueghel the ElderPieter Bruegel the Elder was a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes . He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel" to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but he is also the one generally meant when the context does...
- Pieter Brueghel the YoungerPieter Brueghel the YoungerPieter Brueghel the Younger /ˈpitəɾ ˈbɾøːxəl/ was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Brueghel the Elder's paintings and nicknamed "Hell Brueghel" for his fantastic treatments of fire and grotesque imagery.-Life:Pieter Brueghel the Younger was the oldest son of the...
- Joos van CleveJoos van CleveJoos van Cleve was a painter active in Antwerp around 1511 to 1540. He was born around 1485 and died in between 1540 and 1541...
- Pieter Coecke van AelstPieter van AelstPieter van Aelst or Pieter Coecke van Aelst was a Flemish painter. He studied under Bernaert van Orley and later lived in Italy before entering the Antwerp Guild of painters in 1527. In 1533, he travelled to Constantinople for one year in a failed attempt to establish business connections for...
- Hieronymus Cockx
- Corneille de LyonCorneille de LyonCorneille de Lyon was a Dutch painter of portraits who was active from 1533 until his death in Lyon, France...
- Hans EworthHans EworthHans Eworth was a Flemish painter active in England in the mid-16th century. Along with other exiled Flemings, he made a career in Tudor London, painting allegorical images as well as portraits of the gentry and nobility. About 40 paintings are now attributed to Eworth, among them portraits of...
- Frans FlorisFrans FlorisFrans Floris, or more correctly Frans de Vriendt, called Floris was a Flemish painter. He was a member of a large family trained to the study of art in Flanders.-Biography:...
- Maarten van Heemskerck
- Catarina van HemessenCatarina van HemessenCaterina van Hemessen was a Flemish Renaissance painter. She is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom there is verifiable extant work, and is known for a series of small scale female portraits completed between the late 1540s and early 1550s.While not an especially gifted artist, Van...
- Jan Sanders van HemessenJan Sanders van HemessenJan Sanders van Hemessen was a Flemish Northern Renaissance painter. He was born in Hemiksem, then called Hemessen or Heymissen. Following studies in Italy, in 1524 he settled in Antwerp. A mannerist, his images focused on human failings such as greed and vanity...
- Adriaen IsenbrantAdriaen IsenbrantAdriaen Isenbrandt or Adrien, Isenbrant, Ysenbrant, Ysenbrandt or Hysebrant , was a Flemish Northern Renaissance painter, who from documentary evidence was clearly a significant artist of his period, but to whom no specific works can be clearly documented...
- Jan Mabuse van GosaertJan MabuseJan Mabuse was the name adopted by the Flemish painter Jan Gossaert; or Jennyn van Hennegouwe , as he called himself when he matriculated in the guild of St Luke, at Antwerp, in 1503.-Biography:Little is known of his early life...
- Anthonis Mor
- Lucas van LeydenLucas van LeydenLucas van Leyden , also named either Lucas Hugensz or Lucas Jacobsz, was a Dutch engraver and painter, born and mainly active in Leiden...
- Lambert LombardLambert LombardLambert Lombard was a Renaissance painter, architect and theorist for the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. During his career he worked for Jan Gossaert in Middelburg and trained Frans Floris. In 1532 he became court painter and architect in Liège...
- Quentin MatsysQuentin MatsysQuentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter...
- Jan MostaertJan MostaertJan Mostaert, also known by the names Joannes Sinapius and Master Of Oultremont was a Dutch Renaissance painter of portraits and religious subjects, though his most famous creation was the "West Indies Landscape"....
- Bernard van OrleyBernard van OrleyBernard van Orley , also called Barend or Barent van Orley, Bernaert van Orley or Barend van Brussel, was a Flemish Northern Renaissance painter and draughtsman, and also a leading designer of tapestries and stained glass...
- Joachim PatinirJoachim PatinirJoachim Patinir, also called de Patiner , was a Flemish Northern Renaissance history and landscape painter from the area of modern Wallonia...
- Frans Pourbus the ElderFrans Pourbus the ElderFrans Pourbus the elder was a Flemish Renaissance painter.He was known primarily for his religious and portrait painting and worked mainly in Antwerp. His father was painter Pieter Pourbus and his son was painter Frans Pourbus the younger.-External links:*...
- Pieter PourbusPieter PourbusPieter Pourbus was a Dutch-born Flemish Renaissance painter.Pourbus was born in Gouda. He was known primarily for his religious and portrait painting and worked mainly in Bruges, where he had moved from Gouda by 1543. He died in Bruges...
- Jan ProvoostJan ProvoostJan Provoost, or Jean Provost, or Jan Provost was a Flemish painter. He was one of the most famous Netherlandish painters of his generation, a prolific master who left his early workshop in Valenciennes to run two workshops, one in Bruges, where he was made a burgher in 1494, the other...
- Marinus van ReymerswaeleMarinus van ReymerswaeleMarinus Claeszoon van Reymerswaele was a Dutch painter. He worked in Zeeland from 1533-1545. Hence he is also named Marinus de Seeu . He studied at the University of Leuven and was trained as a painter in Antwerp .His name is known from a small number of signed panels...
- Jan van ScorelJan van ScorelJan van Scorel was an influential Dutch painter credited with the introduction of High Italian Renaissance art to the Netherlands.-Biography:He was born in Schoorl, north of Alkmaar and close to Egmond Abbey...
- Levina TeerlincLevina TeerlincLevina Teerlinc was a Flemish miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I....
- Jacob van UtrechtJacob van UtrechtJacob Claesz van Utrecht, also named by his signature Jacobus Traiectensis was a Flemish early Renaissance painter who worked in Antwerp and Lübeck.-Life:...