Art of the Low Countries
Encyclopedia
Art of the Low Countries is painting
, sculpture
, architecture
, printmaking
, and other forms of visual art produced in the Low Countries
, and since the 19th century in Belgium
and the Netherlands
. It includes the traditions of Early Netherlandish painting
and the Renaissance in the Low Countries. During the 17th century Dutch Golden Age painting
prominently represents the artistic culture of the northern Netherlands while Flemish Baroque painting
and the art of Peter Paul Rubens is the cornerstone of art in the southern Netherlands
.
, especially in the flourishing cities of Bruges
and Ghent
. It begins approximately with the careers of Robert Campin
and Hubert
and Jan van Eyck
around 1400 and ends with Gerard David
about 1520. Other major figures include Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes
, and Petrus Christus
.
, Maarten van Heemskerck and Frans Floris
were all instrumental in adopting Italian models and incorporating them into their own artistic language. The spread of Mannerism
throughout Europe produced important forms of Northern Mannerist art in the Low Countries. Finally, Joachim Patinir
was a recognized innovator of landscape painting, while Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Aertsen
helped establish genre painting
as a popular subject matter.
The 17th century was a period dominated by the distinct individuals Peter Paul Rubens in the Southern Netherlands
and Rembrandt van Rijn in the newly independent Dutch Republic. Dutch and Flemish painters both followed many of the same themes, including still life
, genre, landscape, portraiture
and classicism
. Other artistic tendencies clearly differentiated art in the south from the north: the Counter-Reformation
, which spurred on patronage for large altarpiece
s in the south, was absent from the Dutch Republic, while Flemish painting did not see the development of the types of calm, single-figure genre paintings championed by the likes of Jan Vermeer.
, whose hometown of Valenciennes
had been annexed by France
a decade before he was born. Otherwise, few painters from about 1700 until the end of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands
in 1830 have been incorporated into the art historical discourse. Dutch painters such as Jacob de Wit
adopted a lofty Rococo
style, indebted somewhat to Rubens, for ceiling decorations, but there was little work available. Other painters, such as Cornelis Troost
, looked to England
and especially the works of William Hogarth
, for inspiration.
is an important figure from Belgium, while Vincent van Gogh
, from the Netherlands, posthumously reached the level of modern superstar
painter.
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, printmaking
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
, and other forms of visual art produced in the Low Countries
Netherlands (terminology)
More than one name is used to refer to the Netherlands, both in English and in other languages. Some of these names refer to different, but overlapping geographical, linguistic and political areas of the country. This is a common source of confusion for outsiders...
, and since the 19th century in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. It includes the traditions of 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...
and the Renaissance in the Low Countries. During the 17th century Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
prominently represents the artistic culture of the northern Netherlands while Flemish Baroque painting
Flemish Baroque painting
Flemish Baroque painting is the art produced in the Southern Netherlands between about 1585, when the Dutch Republic was split from the Habsburg Spain regions to the south by the recapturing of Antwerp by the Spanish, until about 1700, when Habsburg authority ended with the death of King Charles II...
and the art of Peter Paul Rubens is the cornerstone of art in the southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands were a part of the Low Countries controlled by Spain , Austria and annexed by France...
.
Early Netherlandish
Early Netherlandish art includes those artists, more notably painters, who were active during the 15th and early 16th centuries in the Low CountriesNetherlands (terminology)
More than one name is used to refer to the Netherlands, both in English and in other languages. Some of these names refer to different, but overlapping geographical, linguistic and political areas of the country. This is a common source of confusion for outsiders...
, especially in the flourishing cities of Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
and Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
. It begins approximately with the careers of Robert Campin
Robert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
and Hubert
Hubert van Eyck
Hubert van Eyck was a Flemish painter and older brother of Jan van Eyck. He was probably born in Maaseik, Flanders, now in Belgium....
and Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
around 1400 and ends with Gerard David
Gerard David
Gerard David was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color.-Life:...
about 1520. Other major figures include Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes
Hugo van der Goes
Hugo van der Goes was a Flemish painter. He was, along with Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Gerard David, one of the most important of the Early Netherlandish painters.-Biography:...
, and Petrus Christus
Petrus Christus
Petrus Christus was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444.-Life:Christus was born in Baarle, near Antwerp and Breda. Long considered a student of and successor to Jan van Eyck, his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of Van Eyck. At the death of Van Eyck in 1441,...
.
Renaissance and Mannerism
The 16th century was a period of response to Italian Renaissance art and the development of several distinctly Netherlandish themes. At the start of the century Hieronymus Bosch painted fantastic images, often for courtly viewers, that left a long legacy. Jan MabuseJan 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. The spread of Mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
throughout Europe produced important forms of Northern Mannerist art in the Low Countries. Finally, 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...
was a recognized innovator of landscape painting, 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 establish 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...
as a popular subject matter.
Baroque and classicism
The 17th century was a period dominated by the distinct individuals Peter Paul Rubens in the Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands were a part of the Low Countries controlled by Spain , Austria and annexed by France...
and Rembrandt van Rijn in the newly independent Dutch Republic. Dutch and Flemish painters both followed many of the same themes, including still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
, genre, landscape, portraiture
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
and classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
. Other artistic tendencies clearly differentiated art in the south from the north: the Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
, which spurred on patronage for large altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
s in the south, was absent from the Dutch Republic, while Flemish painting did not see the development of the types of calm, single-figure genre paintings championed by the likes of Jan Vermeer.
1700–1830
The most famous painter from the region in the late 17th and early 18th century is Antoine WatteauAntoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement...
, whose hometown of Valenciennes
Valenciennes
Valenciennes is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.It lies on the Scheldt river. Although the city and region had seen a steady decline between 1975 and 1990, it has since rebounded...
had been annexed by France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
a decade before he was born. Otherwise, few painters from about 1700 until the end of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands
United Kingdom of the Netherlands
United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name used to refer to Kingdom of the Netherlands during the period after it was first created from part of the First French Empire and before the new kingdom of Belgium split out in 1830...
in 1830 have been incorporated into the art historical discourse. Dutch painters such as Jacob de Wit
Jacob de Wit
Jacob de Wit was a Dutch artist and interior decorator who painted many religious scenes.-Biography:De Wit was born in Amsterdam, and became famous for his door and ceiling paintings. He lived on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, and many of the buildings on the Keizersgracht still have door or...
adopted a lofty Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
style, indebted somewhat to Rubens, for ceiling decorations, but there was little work available. Other painters, such as Cornelis Troost
Cornelis Troost
Cornelis Troost was a Dutch painter from Amsterdam, "by far the most original and versatile artist of his age", which was however the period following the Dutch Golden Age painting of the previous century...
, looked to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and especially the works of William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
, for inspiration.
After 1830
Art after 1830 in Belgium and the Netherlands follow separate paths as the countries further develop their own identities. James EnsorJames Ensor
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
is an important figure from Belgium, while Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, from the Netherlands, posthumously reached the level of modern superstar
Superstar
A superstar is a widely acclaimed celebrity.Superstar or superstars may also refer to:-People:* Warhol Superstar, associates of Andy Warhol* WWE Superstar, the term used to refer to entertainers from the WWE...
painter.
Further reading
- Koldeweij, A. M., Alexandra Hermesdorf, Paul Huvenne, et al.. De Schilderkunst der Lage Landen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. ISBN 9789053568095