For those who don’t know me personally, I sometimes do freelance writing as a side hustle. Rarely does this side hustle overlap with my SCA interests, but this month it did. While this is an extended version of the piece I submitted, I hope you enjoy this completely out of left field content!

On Flemish Oil Painters

At the turn of the 14th century, art culture in Europe was well established in both portraiture and religious uses. However, the advent of oil paints, where previously egg tempera was king, marks a major shift in the artistic ideal. Dr. Fred Kliner of Columbia University cites four men as the quintessential artists of the Flemish school of oil painting: Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hugo van der Goes and credits these four artists with setting the tone for painting styles in the 15th century.

Egg tempera was for many years the primary medium of painting. Featuring pigment ground into eggs, the resultant paint is thick and dries very quickly. This forces the artist to work in small strokes to avoid difficult to fix errors and to avoid cracking during drying. The addition of oil, namely linseed oil, to the mix was a game changer. Oil paints have several advantages. First, oil paints can be applied in much thinner layers, a technique called glazing. Glazing allows for a dynamic buildup of pigment and open doors for a much wider variety of textural elements and dynamic lighting. Second, oil paints dry much slower than egg tempera, giving the artist much more time to create seamless blending and correct any potential errors that may have occurred. An excellent example of the latter is Leonardo da Vinci’s use of sfumato to create incredibly lifelike shadows in his work. However, while an Italian might be one of the most notable use cases, it was the Netherlandish school that popularized the style.

Robert Campin, originally of Tournai, Belgium, was likely born in the 1370’s. While no known works are attributed to him by this name, pieces done under the name “The Master of Flemalle” are often credited to Campin. Campin was known for his use of glazing oil paints to bring an extraordinary amount of life to the colors in his paintings. His most notable piece is the Mérode Altarpiece, which is now housed at the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The triptych’s main image is that of the Annunciation, but where the piece really excels is in the presentation of powerful Christian imagery through the lens of everyday life in Flanders. By humanizing these religious themes, Campin is able to contextualize and bring one of the most powerful social influences into the private life of the household for which this piece was created.

Jan van Eyck rose to international prominence after taking on the completion of the Ghent Altarpiece. Originally, the commission belonged to his brother, Hubert, but Jan took on the work after the former’s early death. Van Eyck is in many ways the main actor in the play of popularizing Flemish painting. He took the rich textural elements of Campin’s work to the next level, and became known not just for being the court painter to Philip the Good, but for his masterful use of realism, lighting on different surfaces such as gems and fabric, and for his tongue-in-cheek self-insertion in many of his works. One particularly helpful detail, born of van Eyck’s thirst for self-promotion, is the inclusion of dates of completion in each of his works. This was not a popular practice at the time, but is a boon to modern scholars.

Rogier van der Weyden was a student of Robert Campin’s, and serves as both a stylistic and popular foil to van Eyck. Where van Eyck often included vast environmental or landscape aspects to his works, van der Weyden narrowed the field of focus to draw attention to the dynamic human elements of his work. Van Eyck’s popularization of portraiture is contrasted by van der Weyden’s deep commitment to overtly Chrisitian imagery, whose works are focused on the events of the Bible and saints’ lives. Van der Weyden was known for his incredibly expressive works, which evoke deep emotion in the viewer, and for tutoring painters on his travels around continental Europe, further popularizing the Flemish style of painting. Key pieces of work include the Pieta, Magdalene Ascending, and Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin.

Lastly is Hugo van der Goes, whose Portinari Altarpiece highlights the international popularity of the Netherlandish school of painting. Van der Goes employed realism to striking effect in the textures of clothing, skin, hair and the environment of this triptych. After joining a monastery, he continued to paint, but compared to his predecessors, van der Goes enjoyed a relatively short-lived public career.  In addition to the Altarpiece, van der Goes also created a range of emotionally complex portraiture. Van der Goes notably suffered from mental health challenges and this struggle is captured in some of the darker or more unsettling features of his art.

During the 15th century, Flanders dominated the European art scene. Well-known figures renowned for traveling and contributing art across borders fed the popularization of realism, emotional human action, and the “newly re-discovered” medium of oil paints. Giants such as van Eyck’s wide-spread use of commonplace scenes and sprawling landscapes and van der Weyden’s pious depictions of Christian stories brought these styles to the forefront, and set the tone for art evolution in continental Europe into the Renaissance. 

Works Cited

Campin, Robert. Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece). 1427, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters. Accessed online on August 16, 2022.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Hugo Van Der Goes.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hugo-van-der-Goes. 

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Robert Campin". Encyclopædia Britannica, 22 Apr. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Campin. Accessed 16 August 2022.

Jones, Susan. “Jan Van Eyck (Ca. 1390–1441).” Metmuseum.org, Oct. 2002, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/eyck/hd_eyck.htm. 

Jones, Susan. “Painting in Oil in the Low Countries and Its Spread to Southern Europe.” Metmuseum.org, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oct. 2002, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/optg/hd_optg.htm. 

Jones, Susan. “The Ghent Altarpiece.” Metmuseum.org, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oct. 2002, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ghnt/hd_ghnt.htm. 

Kessler, Herbert Leon. “Rogier Van Der Weyden.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rogier-van-der-Weyden. 

Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner’s Art through Ages: A Global History. Enhanced 13th ed., Wadsworth, 2011.

“Robert Campin .” The Getty Museum, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/103KVF. 

“Rogier Van Der Weyden.” Rogier Van Der Weyden (about 1399 - 1464) | National Gallery, London, The National Gallery, London, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/rogier-van-der-weyden.