Events

The 15th century was one of astonishing and almost uninterrupted artistic achievement in the area controlled by the Dukes of Burgundy and referred to as the Burgundian Netherlands. This area included the current countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and a portion of northern France. Netherlandish artists extended the boundaries of painting until they seemed as limitless as the blue-tinged mountains of the distant horizons in their paintings. Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden became the most renowned painters in Europe, van Eyck acquiring legendary status perfecting the technique of oil paint and almost impossible representation of minute detail, practices that clearly distinguish Northern art from Italian art as well as art from the preceding centuries. Works by these masters were sought by princes and merchants throughout Europe, who prized them for their remarkable qualities of verisimilitude, their technical and coloristic virtuosity, and their heightened expressive power. In this docent-led talk we’ll focus on how Netherlandish artists achieved their common goal - to make the painted image vividly present and to render the unseen palpable.