4. Early Netherlandish painting (15-16th c.)

The territory of present-day Belgium and part of Holland, a large plain, belonged in the 15th century to the Duchy of Burgundy. At the end of the century, it became part of the Hapsburg Empire. Its rich towns, like Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp, were the most important economical centres in Northern Europe. The underdeveloped northern areas became significant only in the 16th century.
Simultaneously with the appearance of the Italian Renaissance, the ars nova was born also in the Southern Netherlands in the 15th century, especially in Bruges. The two generations of the great masters of Flemish painting, who exerted a great influence on all of Europe, worked in this town. They rediscovered oil painting, a technique used earlier in other media; in fact, it was the use of oil as a binding vehicle for the pulverized pigment that rendered their painting with deeply glowing, transparent colours possible.
The collection of Netherlandish paintings in the Christian Museum does not give as complete an overview of the art of the region, as the Italian collection does, but it includes some outstanding works. Memling’s and Jan van Hemessen’s works indicate the significance of the late Gothic and the Flemish Renaissance on an exceptional level, and the collection contains also some less recognized but important works from the Northern Netherlands. The importance of the Netherlandish school did not escape the attention of the museum founder Simor, nor later that of Ipolyi: their interest turned to the Middle Ages – the period rediscovered by German Romanticism –, and they left to the Museum also Netherlandish pieces besides the German, Austrian and Hungarian works of art.
Zs.U.