Famous Dutch artists. Paintings by Dutch artists

Fruit and fly

The artist Jan Van Huysum, a great artist and master of Dutch still life, lived at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, and enjoyed enormous popularity among his contemporaries.

Very little is known about the life and work of Jan van Huysum. He was born into the family of the artist Justus van Huysum Sr., his three brothers were also artists. In 1704 Jan Van Huysum married Margaret Schouten.

Portrait of Jan van Huysum by Arnold Bonen, circa 1720

The artist very quickly became a famous artist and a recognized master of Dutch still life. Crowned heads decorated their chambers and state rooms with paintings by the master. Jan Van Huysum's works were not available to the rest of the public. The fact is that the master worked on each painting for a very long time. And his works were very expensive - tens of times more expensive than paintings by Rembrandt, Jan Steen and Albert Cuyp.
Each painting consists of dozens of layers of transparent paint and meticulously painted details: layer by layer and stroke by stroke. Thus, over the course of several years, this master’s still life was born.

Jan van Huysum's brushes include several quite interesting landscapes, but the artist's main theme is still lifes. Experts divide Jan Van Huysum's still lifes into two groups: still lifes on a light background and still lifes on a dark background. “Light still lifes” require more “mature” skill from the artist - experience and talent are needed for competent light modeling. However, these are already details.

Better look at these works. They are truly wonderful.

Paintings by artist Jan Van Huysum

Fruits, flowers and insects

Mallows and other flowers in a vase

Flowers and fruits

Vase with Flowers

Flowers and fruits

Vase with Flowers

Flowers and fruits

Flowers in a terracotta vase

Vase with flowers in a niche

Fruits and flowers

Basket with flowers and butterflies

Dutch artists made a great contribution to the work of masters who began their activities in the 17th century and did not stop until the present time. However, they had an influence not only on their colleagues, but also on professionals in literature (Valentin Proust, Donna Tartt) and photography (Ellen Kooi, Bill Gekas and others).

Beginning of development

In 1648, Holland gained independence, but for the formation of a new state, the Netherlands had to endure an act of revenge on the part of Spain, which killed about 10 thousand people in the Flemish city of Antwerp at that time. As a result of the massacre, the inhabitants of Flanders emigrated from the territories controlled by the Spanish authorities.

Based on this, it would be logical to recognize that the impetus for independent Dutch artists came precisely from Flemish creativity.

Since the 17th century, both state and artistic branches have occurred, leading to the formation of two schools of art, separated by nationality. They had a common origin, but were quite different in their characteristics. While Flanders remained under the wings of Catholicism, Holland experienced a completely new prosperity, starting from the 17th century.

Dutch culture

In the 17th century, the new state had just embarked on the path of its development, completely breaking ties with the art of the past era.

The fight with Spain gradually subsided. The national mood began to be traced in popular circles as they moved away from the Catholic religion previously imposed by the authorities.

Protestant rule had a contradictory view of decoration, which led to a reduction in works on religious themes, and in the future only played into the hands of secular art.

Never before now has the real surrounding reality been depicted so often in paintings. In their works, Dutch artists wanted to show ordinary everyday life without embellishment, refined tastes and nobility.

The secular artistic explosion gave rise to such numerous directions as landscape, portrait, everyday genre and still life (the existence of which even the most developed centers of Italy and France did not know).

The Dutch artists' own vision of realism, expressed in portraits, landscapes, interior works and still life paintings, aroused interest in this skill from all levels of society.

Thus, Dutch art of the 17th century was nicknamed the "Golden Age of Dutch Painting", securing its status as the most outstanding era in painting in the Netherlands.

It is important to know: there is a misconception that the Dutch school depicted only the mediocrity of human existence, but the masters of those times brazenly destroyed the framework with the help of their fantastic works (for example, “Landscape with John the Baptist” by Bloemaert).

Dutch artists of the 17th century. Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn is considered to be one of the largest artistic figures in Holland. In addition to his activities as an artist, he was also engaged in engraving and was rightfully considered a master of chiaroscuro.

His legacy is rich in individual diversity: portraits, genre scenes, still lifes, landscapes, as well as paintings on subjects of history, religion and mythology.

His ability to master chiaroscuro allowed him to enhance the emotional expressiveness and spirituality of a person.

While working on portraits, he worked on human facial expressions.

In connection with the heartbreaking tragic events, his later works were filled with a dim light that exposed people’s deep experiences, as a result of which his brilliant works became of no interest to anyone.

At that time, the fashion was for external beauty without attempts to dive into depth, as well as naturalism, which was at odds with frank realism.

Every Russian lover of fine art can see the painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son” with his own eyes, since this work is in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Frans Hals

Frans Hals is a great Dutch artist and major portrait painter who helped introduce the genre of free writing into Russian art.

The work that brought him fame was the painting entitled “The Banquet of the Officers of the Rifle Company of St. George,” painted in 1616.

His portrait works were too natural for that time, which was at odds with the present day. Due to the fact that the artist remained misunderstood, he, like the great Rembrandt, ended his life in poverty. "The Gypsy" (1625-1630) is one of his most famous works.

Jan Steen

Jan Steen is one of the most witty and cheerful Dutch artists at first glance. Making fun of social vices, he loved to resort to the art of satire of society. While entertaining the viewer with harmless, funny images of revelers and ladies of easy virtue, he actually warned against such a lifestyle.

The artist also had calmer paintings, for example, the work “Morning Toilet,” which at first glance seemed like an absolutely innocent action. But if you look closely at the details, you can be quite surprised by their revelations: these are traces of stockings that previously squeezed the legs, and a pot filled with something indecent at night, as well as a dog that allows itself to be right on the owner’s pillow.

In his best works, the artist was ahead of his colleagues in his elegantly skillful combination of color palettes and mastery of shadows.

Other Dutch artists

This article listed only three bright people out of dozens who deserve to be on the same list with them:

So, in this article you got acquainted with Dutch artists of the 17th century and their works.

Until the end of the 16th century, Dutch painting was inseparably linked with Flemish painting and had the general name of the “Netherlands school”. Both of them, being a branch of German painting, consider the van Eyck brothers to be their ancestors and have been moving in the same direction for a long time, developing the same technique, so that the artists of Holland are no different from their Flanders and Brabant brothers.

When the Dutch people got rid of the oppression of Spain, Dutch painting acquired a national character. Dutch artists are distinguished by their reproduction of nature with special love in all its simplicity and truth and a subtle sense of color.

The Dutch were the first to understand that even in inanimate nature everything breathes life, everything is attractive, everything is capable of evoking thought and exciting the movement of the heart.

Among landscape painters who interpret their native nature, Jan van Goyen (1595-1656) is especially respected, who, together with Ezaias van de Velde (c. 1590-1630) and Pieter Moleyn the Elder (1595-1661), is considered the founder of the Dutch landscape.

But the artists of Holland cannot be divided into schools. The expression “Dutch school of painting” is very arbitrary. In Holland, there were organized societies of artists, which were free corporations that protected the rights of their members and did not influence creative activity.

The name of Rembrandt (1606-1669) shines especially brightly in history, in whose personality all the best qualities of Dutch painting were concentrated and his influence was reflected in all its types - in portraits, historical paintings, everyday scenes and landscapes.

In the 17th century, everyday painting developed successfully, the first experiments of which were noted in the old Dutch school. In this genre, the most famous names are Cornelis Beg (1620-64), Richart Brackenburg (1650-1702), Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704) Henrik Roques, nicknamed Sorg (1621-82),

Artists who painted scenes of military life can be classified as genre painters. The main representative of this branch of painting is the famous and extraordinarily prolific Philips Wouwerman (1619-68)

In a special category we can single out masters who in their paintings combined landscapes with images of animals. The most famous among such painters of rural idyll is Paulus Potter (1625-54); Albert Cuyp (1620-91).

Dutch artists paid the greatest attention to the sea.

In the work of Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 or 1612-93), his famous son Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), Ludolf Backhuisen (1631-1708), painting of sea views was their specialty.

In the field of still life, the most famous were Jan-Davids de Gem (1606-83), his son Cornelis (1631-95), Abraham Mignon (1640-79), Melchior de Gondecoeter (1636-95), Maria Osterwijk (1630-93) .

The brilliant period of Dutch painting did not last long - only one century.

Since the beginning of the 18th century. its decline is coming, the reason for this is the tastes and views of the pompous era of Louis XIV. Instead of a direct relationship to nature, love of what is native and sincerity, the dominance of preconceived theories, convention, and imitation of the luminaries of the French school is established. The main propagator of this regrettable trend was the Flemish Gerard de Leresse (1641-1711), who settled in Amsterdam.

The decline of the school was also facilitated by the famous Adrian van de Werff (1659-1722), whose dull coloring of his paintings once seemed the height of perfection.

Foreign influence weighed heavily on Dutch painting until the twenties of the 19th century.

Subsequently, Dutch artists turned to their antiquity - to strict observation of nature.

The latest Dutch painting by landscape painters is especially rich. These include Andreas Schelfhout (1787-1870), Barent Koekkoek (1803-62), Anton Mauwe (1838-88), Jacob Maris (b. 1837), Johannes Weissenbruch (1822-1880) and others.

Among the newest marine painters in Holland, the palm belongs to Johannes Schotel (1787-1838).

Wouters Verschoor (1812-74) showed great skill in painting animals.

You can buy reproductions of paintings by Dutch artists in our online store.

Note. In addition to artists from the Netherlands, the list also includes painters from Flanders.

15th century Dutch art
The first manifestations of Renaissance art in the Netherlands date back to the early 15th century. The first paintings that can already be classified as early Renaissance monuments were created by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Both of them - Hubert (died 1426) and Jan (circa 1390-1441) - played a decisive role in the formation of the Dutch Renaissance. Almost nothing is known about Hubert. Jan was apparently a very educated man, he studied geometry, chemistry, cartography, and carried out some diplomatic assignments for the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, in whose service, by the way, his trip to Portugal took place. The first steps of the Renaissance in the Netherlands can be judged by the paintings of the brothers, executed in the 20s of the 15th century, and among them such as “Myrrh-Bearing Women at the Tomb” (possibly part of a polyptych; Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beyningen), “ Madonna in the Church" (Berlin), "Saint Jerome" (Detroit, Art Institute).

The Van Eyck brothers occupy an exceptional place in contemporary art. But they weren't alone. At the same time, other painters who were stylistically and problematically related to them also worked with them. Among them, the first place undoubtedly belongs to the so-called Flemal master. Many ingenious attempts have been made to determine his true name and origin. Of these, the most convincing version is that this artist receives the name Robert Campin and a fairly developed biography. Previously called the Master of the Altar (or "Annunciation") of Merode. There is also an unconvincing point of view that attributes the works attributed to him to the young Rogier van der Weyden.

It is known about Campin that he was born in 1378 or 1379 in Valenciennes, received the title of master in 1406 in Tournai, lived there, performed, in addition to painting, many decorative works, was a teacher of a number of painters (including Rogier van der Weyden, who will be discussed below - from 1426, and Jacques Darais - from 1427) and died in 1444. Kampen’s art retained everyday features in the general “pantheistic” scheme and thus turned out to be very close to the next generation of Dutch painters. The early works of Rogier van der Weyden and Jacques Darais, an author who was extremely dependent on Campin (for example, his “Adoration of the Magi” and “The Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth,” 1434–1435; Berlin), clearly reveal an interest in the art of this master, in which there is no doubt the trend of time appears.

Rogier van der Weyden was born in 1399 or 1400, trained under Campin (that is, in Tournai), received the title of master in 1432, and in 1435 moved to Brussels, where he was the official painter of the city: in 1449–1450 he traveled to Italy and died in 1464. Some of the greatest artists of the Dutch Renaissance studied with him (for example, Memling), and he enjoyed wide fame not only in his homeland, but also in Italy (the famous scientist and philosopher Nicholas of Cusa called him the greatest artist; Dürer later noted his work ). The work of Rogier van der Weyden served as a nourishing basis for a wide variety of painters of the next generation. Suffice it to say that his workshop - the first such widely organized workshop in the Netherlands - had a strong influence on the unprecedented spread of the style of one master in the 15th century, ultimately reduced this style to the sum of stencil techniques and even played the role of a brake on painting at the end of the century. And yet the art of the mid-15th century cannot be reduced to the Rohir tradition, although it is closely connected with it. The other path is epitomized primarily by the works of Dirik Bouts and Albert Ouwater. They, like Rogier, are somewhat alien to pantheistic admiration for life, and their image of man is increasingly losing touch with questions of the universe - philosophical, theological and artistic questions, acquiring more and more concreteness and psychological certainty. But Rogier van der Weyden, a master of heightened dramatic sound, an artist who strived for individual and at the same time sublime images, was interested mainly in the sphere of human spiritual properties. The achievements of Bouts and Ouwater lie in the area of ​​enhancing everyday authenticity of the image. Among formal problems, they were more interested in issues related to solving not so much expressive as visual problems (not the sharpness of the drawing and the expression of color, but the spatial organization of the picture and the naturalness of the light-air environment).

Portrait of a Young Woman, 1445, Art Gallery, Berlin

St Ivo, 1450, National Gallery, London

Saint Luke painting the image of the Madonna, 1450, Museum Groningen, Bruges

But before moving on to consider the work of these two painters, it is worth dwelling on a phenomenon on a smaller scale, which shows that the discoveries of mid-century art, being both a continuation of the Van Eyck-Campen tradition and a departure from them, were deeply justified in both of these qualities. The more conservative painter Petrus Christus clearly demonstrates the historical inevitability of this apostasy, even for artists not inclined to radical discoveries. From 1444, Christus became a citizen of Bruges (he died there in 1472/1473) - that is, he saw the best works of van Eyck and was influenced by his tradition. Without resorting to the sharp aphorism of Rogier van der Weyden, Christus achieved a more individualized and differentiated characterization than van Eyck did. However, his portraits (E. Grimston - 1446, London, National Gallery; Carthusian monk - 1446, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) at the same time indicate a certain decline in imagery in his work. In art, the craving for the concrete, individual, and particular was becoming more and more apparent. Perhaps these tendencies were most clearly manifested in the work of Bouts. Younger than Rogier van der Weyden (born between 1400 and 1410), he was far from the dramatic and analytical nature of this master. Yet early Bouts comes largely from Rogier. The altar with “The Descent from the Cross” (Granada, Cathedral) and a number of other paintings, for example “Entombment” (London, National Gallery), indicate a deep study of the work of this artist. But the originality is already noticeable here - Bouts provides his characters with more space, he is interested not so much in the emotional environment as in the action, the very process of it, his characters are more active. The same goes for portraits. In the excellent portrait of a man (1462; London, National Gallery), prayerfully raised - although without any exaltation - eyes, a special mouth and neatly folded hands have such an individual coloring that van Eyck did not know. Even in the details you can feel this personal touch. A somewhat prosaic, but innocently real reflection lies in all the works of the master. It is most noticeable in his multi-figure compositions. And especially in his most famous work - the altar of the Louvain Church of St. Peter (between 1464 and 1467). If the viewer always perceives van Eyck’s work as a miracle of creativity, creation, then before the works of Bouts, different feelings arise. Bouts' compositional work speaks volumes about him as a director. Bearing in mind the successes of such a “director’s” method (that is, a method in which the artist’s task is to arrange characteristic characters, as if extracted from nature, to organize a scene) in subsequent centuries, one should pay attention to this phenomenon in the work of Dirk Bouts.

The next stage of Dutch art covers the last three or four decades of the 15th century - an extremely difficult time for the life of the country and its culture. This period opens with the work of Jos van Wassenhove (or Jos van Ghent; between 1435–1440 - after 1476), an artist who played a significant role in the development of new painting, but who left for Italy in 1472, acclimatized there and organically became involved in Italian art. His altar with the “Crucifixion” (Ghent, Church of St. Bavo) indicates a desire for narrative, but at the same time a desire to deprive the story of cold dispassion. He wants to achieve the latter with the help of grace and decorativeness. His altar is a secular work in nature with a light color scheme based on refined iridescent tones.
This period continues with the work of a master of exceptional talent - Hugo van der Goes. He was born around 1435, became a master in Ghent in 1467 and died in 1482. Hus's earliest works include several images of the Madonna and Child, distinguished by the lyrical aspect of the image (Philadelphia, Museum of Art, and Brussels, Museum), and the painting “St. Anne, Mary and Child and the Donor” (Brussels, Museum). Developing the findings of Rogier van der Weyden, Hus sees in composition not so much a way of harmoniously organizing what is depicted, but a means for concentrating and identifying the emotional content of the scene. A person is remarkable to Hus only by the strength of his personal feelings. At the same time, Gus is attracted by tragic feelings. However, the image of Saint Genevieve (on the back of the Lamentation) indicates that, in search of naked emotion, Hugo van der Goes began to pay attention to its ethical significance. In the altar of Portinari, Hus tries to express his faith in the spiritual capabilities of man. But his art becomes nervous and tense. Hus's artistic techniques are varied - especially when he needs to recreate a person's spiritual world. Sometimes, as in conveying the reaction of the shepherds, he compares close feelings in a certain sequence. Sometimes, as in the image of Mary, the artist outlines the general features of the experience, according to which the viewer completes the feeling as a whole. Sometimes - in the images of a narrow-eyed angel or Margarita - he resorts to compositional or rhythmic techniques to decipher the image. Sometimes the very elusiveness of psychological expression turns into a means of characterization for him - this is how the reflection of a smile plays on the dry, colorless face of Maria Baroncelli. And pauses play a huge role - in spatial decision and in action. They provide an opportunity to mentally develop and complete the feeling that the artist outlined in the image. The character of Hugo van der Goes's images always depends on the role they are supposed to play as a whole. The third shepherd is really natural, Joseph is fully psychological, the angel to his right is almost unreal, and the images of Margaret and Magdalene are complex, synthetic and built on extremely subtle psychological gradations.

Hugo van der Goes always wanted to express and embody in his images the spiritual gentleness of a person, his inner warmth. But in essence, the artist’s latest portraits indicate a growing crisis in Hus’s work, for his spiritual structure was generated not so much by an awareness of the individual qualities of a person, but by the tragic loss of the unity of man and the world for the artist. In the last work - “The Death of Mary” (Bruges, Museum) - this crisis results in the collapse of all the artist’s creative aspirations. The despair of the apostles is hopeless. Their gestures are meaningless. Floating in radiance, Christ, with his suffering, seems to justify their suffering, and his pierced palms are turned towards the viewer, and a figure of indefinite size violates the large-scale structure and sense of reality. It is also impossible to understand the extent of the reality of the apostles’ experience, for they all had the same feeling. And it’s not so much theirs as it is the artist’s. But its bearers are still physically real and psychologically convincing. Similar images will be revived later, when at the end of the 15th century in Dutch culture a hundred-year tradition came to its end (in Bosch). A strange zigzag forms the basis of the composition of the painting and organizes it: the seated apostle, the only one motionless, looking at the viewer, tilted from left to right, the prostrate Mary from right to left, Christ floating from left to right. And the same zigzag in the color scheme: the figure of the seated person is associated with Mary in color, the one lying on a dull blue cloth, in a robe also blue, but of the utmost, extreme blue, then - the ethereal, immaterial blue of Christ. And all around are the colors of the apostles’ robes: yellow, green, blue - infinitely cold, clear, unnatural. Feeling in “The Assumption” is naked. It leaves no room for hope or humanity. At the end of his life, Hugo van der Goes entered a monastery; his very last years were overshadowed by mental illness. Apparently, in these biographical facts one can see a reflection of the tragic contradictions that defined the master’s art. Hus's work was known and appreciated, and it attracted attention even outside the Netherlands. Jean Clouet the Elder (Master of Moulins) was greatly influenced by his art, Domenico Ghirlandaio knew and studied the Portinari altarpiece. However, his contemporaries did not understand him. Netherlandish art was steadily leaning towards a different path, and isolated traces of the influence of Hus's work only highlight the strength and prevalence of these other trends. They appeared most fully and consistently in the works of Hans Memling.

Earthly vanity, triptych, central panel,

Hell, left panel of the triptych "Earthly Vanity",
1485, Museum of Fine Arts, Strastbourg

Hans Memling, apparently born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt am Main, in 1433 (died in 1494), the artist received excellent training from Rogier and, having moved to Bruges, gained wide fame there. Already relatively early works reveal the direction of his quest. The principles of light and sublime received from him a much more secular and earthly meaning, and everything earthly - a certain ideal elation. An example is the altar with the Madonna, saints and donors (London, National Gallery). Memling strives to preserve the everyday appearance of his real heroes and bring his ideal heroes closer to them. The sublime principle ceases to be an expression of certain pantheistically understood general world forces and turns into a natural spiritual property of man. The principles of Memling’s work emerge more clearly in the so-called Floreins-Altar (1479; Bruges, Memling Museum), the main stage and the right wing of which are essentially free copies of the corresponding parts of Rogier’s Munich altar. He decisively reduces the size of the altar, cuts off the top and side parts of Rogier's composition, reduces the number of figures and, as it were, brings the action closer to the viewer. The event loses its majestic scope. The images of the participants lose their representativeness and acquire private features, the composition is a shade of soft harmony, and the color, while maintaining purity and transparency, completely loses Rogirov’s cold, sharp sonority. It seems to tremble with light, clear shades. Even more characteristic is the Annunciation (circa 1482; New York, Lehman collection), where Rogier’s scheme is used; The image of Mary is given the features of soft idealization, the angel is significantly genre-formed, and the interior items are painted with Van Eyck-like love. At the same time, motifs of the Italian Renaissance—garlands, putti, etc.—are increasingly penetrating Memling’s work, and the compositional structure is becoming more measured and clear (triptych with “Madonna and Child, Angel and Donor,” Vienna). The artist tries to erase the line between the concrete, burgherly mundane principle and the idealizing, harmonious one.

Memling's art attracted the close attention of the masters of the northern provinces. But they were also interested in other features - those that were associated with the influence of Huss. The northern provinces, including Holland, lagged behind the southern ones in that period both economically and spiritually. Early Dutch painting usually did not go beyond the late medieval and provincial template, and the level of its craft never rose to the artistry of the Flemish artists. Only in the last quarter of the 15th century did the situation change thanks to the art of Hertgen tot sint Jans. He lived in Haarlem, with the Johannite monks (to which he owes his nickname - sint Jans means Saint John) and died young - twenty-eight years old (born in Leiden (?) around 1460/65, died in Haarlem in 1490-1495 ). Hertgen vaguely sensed the anxiety that worried Hus. But, without rising to his tragic insights, he discovered the soft charm of simple human feeling. He is close to Hus in his interest in the inner, spiritual world of man. Among Goertgen's major works is an altarpiece painted for the Harlem Johannites. The right wing, now sawn on both sides, has survived from it. Its inner side represents a large multi-figure scene of mourning. Gertgen achieves both tasks set by the time: conveying warmth, humaneness of feeling and creating a vitally convincing narrative. The latter is especially noticeable on the outside of the door, where the burning of the remains of John the Baptist by Julian the Apostate is depicted. The participants in the action are endowed with exaggerated character, and the action is divided into a number of independent scenes, each of which is presented with vivid observation. Along the way, the master creates, perhaps, one of the first group portraits in European art of modern times: built on the principle of a simple combination of portrait characteristics, it anticipates the works of the 16th century. His “Family of Christ” (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), presented in a church interior, interpreted as a real spatial environment, provides a lot for understanding Geertgen’s work. The foreground figures remain significant, not showing any feelings, maintaining their everyday appearance with calm dignity. The artist creates images that are perhaps the most burgher in nature in the art of the Netherlands. At the same time, it is significant that Gertgen understands tenderness, sweetness and some naivety not as outwardly characteristic signs, but as certain properties of a person’s spiritual world. And this merging of the burgher sense of life with deep emotionality is an important feature of Gertgen’s work. It is no coincidence that he did not give the spiritual movements of his heroes a sublime, universal character. It’s as if he deliberately prevents his heroes from becoming exceptional. Because of this, they do not seem individual. They have tenderness and have no other feelings or extraneous thoughts; the very clarity and purity of their experiences makes them far from everyday life. However, the resulting ideality of the image never seems abstract or artificial. These features also distinguish one of the artist’s best works, “Christmas” (London, National Gallery), a small painting that conceals feelings of excitement and surprise.
Gertgen died early, but the principles of his art did not remain in obscurity. However, the Master of the Brunswick diptych (“Saint Bavo”, Brunswick, Museum; “Christmas”, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) and some other anonymous masters who are closest to him, who are closest to him, did not so much develop Hertgen’s principles as give them the character of a widespread standard. Perhaps the most significant among them is the Master of Virgo inter virgines (named after the painting of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum depicting Mary among the holy virgins), who gravitated not so much to the psychological justification of emotion, but to the sharpness of its expression in small, rather everyday and sometimes almost deliberately ugly figures ( "Entombment", St. Louis, Museum; "Lamentation", Liverpool; "Annunciation", Rotterdam). But also. his work is more evidence of the exhaustion of a centuries-old tradition than an expression of its development.

A sharp decline in the artistic level is also noticeable in the art of the southern provinces, whose masters were increasingly inclined to be carried away by insignificant everyday details. More interesting than the others is the very narrative Master of the Legend of St. Ursula, who worked in Bruges in the 80-90s of the 15th century (“The Legend of St. Ursula”; Bruges, Convent of the Black Sisters), the unknown author of portraits of the Baroncelli spouses who are not devoid of skill (Florence, Uffizi), and also a very traditional Bruges Master of the legend of St. Lucia (Altar of St. Lucia, 1480, Bruges, Church of St. James, also polyptych, Tallinn, Museum). The formation of empty, petty art at the end of the 15th century is the inevitable antithesis of the quest of Huss and Hertgen. Man has lost the main support of his worldview - faith in the harmonious and favorable order of the universe. But if the common consequence of this was only the impoverishment of the previous concept, then a closer look revealed threatening and mysterious features in the world. To answer the insoluble questions of the time, late medieval allegories, demonology, and gloomy predictions of the Holy Scriptures were used. In conditions of growing acute social contradictions and severe conflicts, Bosch's art arose.

Hieronymus van Aken, nicknamed Bosch, was born in 's-Hertogenbosch (died there in 1516), that is, away from the main artistic centers of the Netherlands. His early works are not without a hint of some primitiveness. But already they strangely combine a sharp and disturbing sense of the life of nature with cold grotesqueness in the depiction of people. Bosch responds to the trend of modern art - with its craving for the real, with its concretization of the image of a person, and then - the reduction of its role and significance. He takes this tendency to a certain limit. In Bosch's art satirical or, better said, sarcastic images of the human race appear. This is his “Operation to remove the stones of stupidity” (Madrid, Prado). The operation is performed by a monk - and here an evil smile appears at the clergy. But the one to whom it is done looks intently at the viewer, and this gaze makes us involved in the action. Sarcasm increases in Bosch’s work; he imagines people as passengers on the ship of fools (the painting and its drawing are in the Louvre). He turns to folk humor - and under his hands it takes on a dark and bitter shade.
Bosch comes to affirm the gloomy, irrational and base nature of life. He not only expresses his worldview, his sense of life, but gives it a moral and ethical assessment. "Haystack" is one of Bosch's most significant works. In this altar, a naked sense of reality is fused with allegory. The haystack alludes to the old Flemish proverb: “The world is a haystack: and everyone takes from it what they can grab”; people kiss in plain sight and play music between an angel and some devilish creature; fantastic creatures pull the cart, and the pope, the emperor, and ordinary people joyfully and obediently follow it: some run ahead, rush between the wheels and die, crushed. The landscape in the distance is not fantastic or fabulous. And above everything - on a cloud - is a small Christ with his hands raised. However, it would be wrong to think that Bosch gravitates towards the method of allegorical likenings. On the contrary, he strives to ensure that his idea is embodied in the very essence of artistic decisions, so that it appears before the viewer not as an encrypted proverb or parable, but as a generalizing unconditional way of life. With a sophistication of imagination unfamiliar to the Middle Ages, Bosch populates his paintings with creatures that bizarrely combine various animal forms, or animal forms with objects of the inanimate world, placing them in obviously incredible relationships. The sky turns red, birds equipped with sails fly through the air, monstrous creatures crawl across the face of the earth. Fish with horse legs open their mouths, and next to them are rats, carrying on their backs living wooden snags from which people hatch. The horse's croup turns into a giant jug, and a tailed head sneaks somewhere on thin bare legs. Everything crawls and everything is endowed with sharp, scratching forms. And everything is infected with energy: every creature - small, deceitful, tenacious - is engulfed in an angry and hasty movement. Bosch gives these phantasmagoric scenes the greatest persuasiveness. He abandons the image of the action unfolding in the foreground and extends it to the whole world. He imparts to his multi-figure dramatic extravaganzas an eerie tone in its universality. Sometimes he introduces a dramatization of a proverb into the picture - but there is no humor left in it. And in the center he places a small defenseless figurine of St. Anthony. Such, for example, is the altar with “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” on the central door from the Lisbon Museum. But then Bosch shows an unprecedentedly acute, naked sense of reality (especially in the scenes on the outer doors of the mentioned altar). In Bosch's mature works the world is limitless, but its spatiality is different - less rapid. The air seems clearer and damper. This is how “John on Patmos” is written. On the reverse side of this painting, where scenes of the martyrdom of Christ are depicted in a circle, amazing landscapes are presented: transparent, clean, with wide river spaces, high skies and others - tragic and intense (“Crucifixion”). But the more persistently Bosch thinks about people. He tries to find an adequate expression of their life. He resorts to the form of a large altar and creates a strange, phantasmagoric grandiose spectacle of the sinful life of people - the “Garden of Delights”.

The artist's latest works strangely combine the fantasy and reality of his previous works, but at the same time they are characterized by a feeling of sad reconciliation. Clots of evil creatures that previously triumphantly spread throughout the entire field of the picture are scattered. Individual, small, they still hide under a tree, appear from quiet river streams, or run along deserted grass-covered hills. But they decreased in size and lost activity. They no longer attack humans. And he (still Saint Anthony) sits between them - reads, thinks (“Saint Anthony”, Prado). Bosch was not interested in the thought of one person’s position in the world. Saint Anthony in his previous works is defenseless, pitiful, but not lonely - in fact, he is deprived of that share of independence that would allow him to feel lonely. Now the landscape relates specifically to one person, and in Bosch’s work the theme of man’s loneliness in the world arises. 15th century art ends with Bosch. Bosch's work completes this stage of pure insights, then intense searches and tragic disappointments.
But the trend personified by his art was not the only one. No less symptomatic is another trend associated with the work of a master of an immeasurably smaller scale - Gerard David. He died late - in 1523 (born around 1460). But, like Bosch, he closed the 15th century. Already his early works (“The Annunciation”; Detroit) are prosaically realistic; works from the very end of the 1480s (two paintings on the plot of the trial of Cambyses; Bruges, Museum) reveal a close connection with Bouts; better than others are compositions of a lyrical nature with a developed, active landscape environment (“Rest on the Flight to Egypt”; Washington, National Gallery). But the impossibility for the master to go beyond the boundaries of the century is most clearly visible in his triptych with the “Baptism of Christ” (early 16th century; Bruges, Museum). The closeness and miniature nature of the painting seems to be in direct conflict with the large scale of the painting. Reality in his vision is devoid of life, emasculated. Behind the intensity of color there is neither spiritual tension nor a sense of the preciousness of the universe. The enamel style of the painting is cold, self-contained and devoid of emotional purpose.

The 15th century in the Netherlands was a time of great art. By the end of the century it had exhausted itself. New historical conditions and the transition of society to another stage of development caused a new stage in the evolution of art. It originated from the beginning of the 16th century. But in the Netherlands, with the original combination of the secular principle with religious criteria in assessing life phenomena, characteristic of their art, which comes from the van Eycks, with the inability to perceive a person in his self-sufficient greatness, outside the questions of spiritual communion with the world or with God - in the Netherlands there is a new era inevitably had to come only after the strongest and most grave crisis of the entire previous worldview. If in Italy the High Renaissance was a logical consequence of the art of the Quattrocento, then in the Netherlands there was no such connection. The transition to a new era turned out to be especially painful, since it largely entailed the denial of previous art. In Italy, a break with medieval traditions occurred as early as the 14th century, and the art of the Italian Renaissance maintained the integrity of its development throughout the Renaissance. In the Netherlands the situation was different. The use of medieval heritage in the 15th century made it difficult to apply established traditions in the 16th century. For Dutch painters, the line between the 15th and 16th centuries turned out to be associated with a radical change in their worldview.

Flemish painting is one of the classical schools in the history of fine arts. Anyone interested in classical drawing has heard this phrase, but what is behind such a noble name? Could you, without hesitation, identify several features of this style and name the main names? In order to more confidently navigate the halls of large museums and be a little less embarrassed by the distant 17th century, you need to know this school.

History of the Flemish School

The 17th century began with an internal split in the Netherlands due to religious and political struggles for the internal freedom of the state. This led to a split in the cultural sphere. The country splits into two parts, southern and northern, whose painting begins to develop in different directions. Southerners who remained in the Catholic faith under Spanish rule become representatives Flemish school, while northern artists are regarded by art critics as Dutch school.

Representatives of the Flemish school of painting continued the traditions of their older Italian colleagues-artists of the Renaissance: Raphael Santi, Michelangelo Buonarroti who paid great attention to religious and mythological themes. Moving along a familiar path, supplemented by inorganic, rough elements of realism, Dutch artists could not create outstanding works of art. The stagnation continued until he stood up at the easel Peter Paul Rubens(1577-1640). What was so amazing that this Dutchman could bring to art?

Famous master

Rubens' talent was able to breathe life into the painting of the southerners, which was not very remarkable before him. Closely familiar with the heritage of Italian masters, the artist continued the tradition of turning to religious themes. But, unlike his colleagues, Rubens was able to harmoniously weave into classical subjects the features of his own style, which tended towards rich colors and depictions of nature filled with life.

From the artist’s paintings, as if from an open window, sunlight seems to be pouring in (“The Last Judgment”, 1617). Unusual solutions for constructing a composition of classical episodes from the Holy Scriptures or pagan mythology attracted attention to the new talent among his contemporaries, and still do. Such innovation looked fresh in comparison with the gloomy, muted shades of the paintings of his Dutch contemporaries.

The models of the Flemish artist also became a characteristic feature. Plump, fair-haired ladies, painted with interest without inappropriate embellishment, often became the central heroines of Rubens' paintings. Examples can be found in the paintings “The Judgment of Paris” (1625), "Susanna and the Elders" (1608), "Venus in front of the mirror"(1615), etc.

In addition, Rubens contributed influence on the formation of the landscape genre. He began to develop in the painting of Flemish artists to the main representative of the school, but it was the work of Rubens that set the main features of national landscape painting, reflecting the local color of the Netherlands.

Followers

Rubens, who quickly became famous, soon found himself surrounded by imitators and students. The master taught them to use the folk features of the area, color, and to glorify, perhaps, unusual human beauty. This attracted spectators and artists. Followers tried themselves in different genres - from portraits ( Gaspare De Caine, Abraham Janssens) to still lifes (Frans Snyders) and landscapes (Jan Wildens). Household painting of the Flemish school is executed in an original way Adrian Brouwer And David Teniers Jr.

One of Rubens' most successful and notable students was Anthony Van Dyck(1599 - 1641). His author's style developed gradually, at first completely subordinated to imitation of his mentor, but over time he became more careful with paints. The student had a penchant for gentle, muted shades in contrast to the teacher.

Van Dyck's paintings make it clear that he did not have a strong inclination to build complex compositions, volumetric spaces with heavy figures, which distinguished his teacher's paintings. The gallery of the artist’s works is filled with single or paired portraits, ceremonial or intimate, which indicates the author’s genre priorities that differ from Rubens.