Low Countries: Notable Artists and their Art

1340s - 1406 - Claus Sluter (All Facts)

• Dutch Sculptor

  • He worked and lived in the Duchy of Burgundy, however

1401 - Claus Sluter: Well of Moses (All Facts)

1350 - 1409 - Melchior Broederlam (All Facts)

• Early Netherlandish (Flemish) Painter

1390s - Melchior Broederlam: Dijon Altarpiece (All Facts)

• Exemplified the International Gothic Style, which introduced a new realism into the painting of lanscape, costume, and animals

1380 - 1441 - Jan Van Eyck (All Facts)

• Flemish Painter

  • He revolutionized Flemish painting, having perfect not only the oil painting technique using brilliant color and subtle light effects but also brought an everyday realism to his works

• He is considered to be the first oil-painter

  • He took painting forward with an enormous stride when he experimented with oil as the medium for his colors

    • Up until that point, painters had mixed paint with water for frescoes or egg-yolk for tempera

  • He and his older brother Hubert, however, painted with oil on wooden panels, which were prepared with plaster and glue

  • The technique gave off a glowing effect not achieved before in painting

• He was known for his secular portrait paintings he made while was settled in Bruges

  • He was also known for his realism in portraiture, in which all the wrinkles and warts of his sitters were rendered so faithfully that his subjects seemed ready to speak

1432 - Jan Van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck: Ghent Altarpiece (All Facts)

• Consists of a landscape and 16 portrait panels, covering over 1,000 square feet, the first oil painting on such a scale

• He completed the work after the latter namesake’s death

• Includes “The Adoration of the Lamb”

1434 - Jan Van Eyck: The Arnolfini Wedding (All Facts)

• 7/Double Portrait

• Shows the namesake artist’s delight in his ability to render domestic interiors in gleaming detail

• Shows the couple in their best robes holding hands

• The lady’s little terrier stands at her feet and there are oranges scattered by the windowsill

• The scene is reflected in miniature in a convex mirror behind the couple

• The namesake *painter signed himself as the namesake “was here”

1436 - Jan Van Eyck: Portrait of a Man with a Carnation (All Facts)

1400 - 1464 - Rogier van Der Weyden (All Facts)

• Flemish Painter

• He produced a more emotional style compared to his artistic predecessor

1435 - Rogier van Der Weyden: Deposition / Descent from the Cross (All Facts)

1450 - 1516 - Hieronymus Bosch (All Facts)

• Dutch Renaissance Painter

1501 - Hieronymus Bosch: Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony (All Facts)

1466 - 1530 - Quentin Massys (All Facts)

• Flemish Renaissance Painter

  • He worked in the early Netherlandish tradition

  • His religious works were in the Flemish tradition

• His portraits reveal the influence of Humanist idealism

1478 - 1532 - Jan Gossaert / Jan Mabuse (All Facts)

• Flemish Renaissance Painter

• He developed a passion for Italian art and developed its formal innovations following his visits to Florence, Rome, and Venice in the early 1500s

• He died at Breda

1521 - Jan Gossaert: Venus and Cupid (All Facts)

1527 - Jan Gossaert: Danae (All Facts)

1525 - 1569 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder (All Facts)

• Flemish Renaissance Painter

  • He was considered the genius of Flemish painting

  • He had two sons who also liked to paint, the junior of the namesake, and Jan

• He was a brilliant draughtsman

• He became master painter in the guild at Antwerp

• He moved from Antwerp to Brussels

  • There he began a series of detailed paintings of peasant life

• He then studied in Italy

  • Despite this, he portrayed people in a much earthier way than the Italians did

• He liked to illustrate country proverbs and show man in harmony with nature

• He liked to paint his subjects in the simple routines of haymaking, harvesting, children’s games, birds-nesting, or even hunting in the snow

  • He was a painter of often grotesque and carnivalesque scenes of country life

1559 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (All Facts)

1560 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (All Facts)

• Painting in which the namesake painter depicted a ploughman and a shepherd quite unaware of the drowning man who had the presumption to fly, characteristic of the namesake myth

1560 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Children’s Games (All Facts)

1564 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Adoration of the Kings (All Facts)

• Painting in which the namesake painter shows a rough stable crowded with peasant faces and a homely Joseph, listening to a peasant whispering in his ear

1565 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Hunters in the Snow, January (All Facts)

1565 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Gloomy Day, February (All Facts)

1565 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Haymaking, July (All Facts)

1565 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Corn Harvest, August (All Facts)

1565 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Return of the Herd, November (All Facts)

1567 / 1568 - Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Beggars / The Cripples (All Facts)

1527 - 1598 - Theodore de Bry (All Facts)

• Walloon Engraver

1591 - Theodore de Bry: Voyages (All Facts)

• Series of books that feature engravings of (Spanish) Florida natives based on paintings by one “Jacques de Magne de Morgues” who lived with the Huguenots at Fort Caroline until it was destroyed by Pedro Menendez de Aviles and the Spanish

• Series of books that feature engravings which depict

  • monstrous reptiles, called alligators

  • savages with tattoos all over their bodies

  • scenes of terrible executions and barbarous rites

1576 - 1621 - Cornelius Boel (All Facts)

• Flemish Engraver and Draughtsman

• He engraved and signed the title page of the first edition of the King James Bible (KJV)

1577 - 1640 - Peter Paul Rubens (All Facts)

• Flemish Baroque Painter

1612 - Peter Paul Rubens: Descent from the Cross (All Facts)