Flemish Painting (15-th and 16-th centuries)

It is a pity that Fifteenth-century Low Countries painting is often called 'Flemish primitive', because calling it 'primitive' makes us think of something at its outset which, in turn, gives rise to the notion of first steps being taken and this, alas, suggests that this something might still be rather raw, awkward, naive, or lacking in polish. Which is exactly and for long enough what more than one intended 'primitive' to mean when the Flemish School was spoken about, for it was being compared with Renaissance ideals of Art by people still hidebound in the belief that all things medieval had ever to be gothicly gloomy and ignorant in their every aspect. For such luminaries, this school's period had been no more than an interlude of charming artists who painted on wood and, fine craftsmen that they were, had even managed to invent oil painting, but, when considered as a school, had fallen so very far short of that perfection, that sense of perspective, that rightness which was the hall mark of the Italian Renaissance. Which is, of course, nothing but nonsense. By the time this splendid school came into its own, the Low Countries had already long enjoyed an artistic tradition that could boast Romanesque illuminated books and 'international' Gothic amongst its own and the World's major achievements.

To add insult to injury, even today we persist in our use of the term 'Flemish' even though Flanders is but that part of the Low Countries where the important cities of Bruges and Ghent stand. Brabant is in no wise Flanders, yet Antwerp and Brussels, even s'Hertogenbosch, the town where Hieronymus Bosch was born and grew up in, form part of it. Robert Campin and Weyden were both from Hainault. A part is plainly being taken for the whole, and this 'whole' should be properly called the Low Countries or Netherlands. But in Spain and many places else, the term 'Flemish' has been used since the 16th century which would make changing it a bind though it would be as well to bear

26 Hunters in the Snow, 1565