Flemish School
Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oak wood, mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell.
Adriaen Brouwer was a Flemish painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the first half of the 17th century. Brouwer was an important innovator of genre painting through his vivid depictions of peasants, soldiers and other "lower class" individuals engaged in drinking, smoking, card or dice playing, fighting, music making etc. in taverns or rural settings. Brouwer contributed to the development of the genre of tronies, i.e. head or facial studies, which investigate varieties of expression. In his final year he produced a few landscapes of a tragic intensity. Brouwer's work had an important influence on the next generation of Flemish and Dutch genre painters. Although Brouwer produced only a small body of work, Dutch masters Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt collected it.
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (Dutch: Pieter Bruegel de Oude) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre painting); he was a pioneer in making both types of subject the focus in large paintings.
Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder (also Velvet, Floral, Paradise) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collaborator with Peter Paul Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish painters in the first three decades of the 17th century.
Alexander Coosemans was a Flemish painter of the Baroque period.
Coosemans studied under the masters of still life painting and became a member of the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp in 1645.
Coosemans painted lush, fruit- and flower-rich still lifes, vanitas-style still lifes that evoke the transience of life. His compositions are often thought to have hidden, allegorical meanings: lobsters, wine and lemons - each subject is filled with references to biblical themes and history.
In collaboration with other artists, Coosemans created so-called garland paintings - a portrait or religious subject surrounded by garlands of flowers and fruit. The artist also decorated the villas of the nobility of Genoa and Rome with his works.
Raphael Coxie was a Flemish Renaissance painter mainly known for his portrait and history paintings. Details about the life and career of the artist are sketchy. He was only rediscovered as a distinctive artist in the 19th century. He was a pupil of his father and became master in the Mechelen Guild of Saint Luke in 1562. Raphael was a passionate gardener and friend of the Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius to whom he sent drawings of flowers, which Clusius used in his scientific publications. He was active from 1586 in Brussels where he became a master of the local painter's guild in 1605. In the period 1588-89 he spent time in Ghent on a major commission for a painting of the Last Judgement. While in Ghent Coxie also painted a Resurrection of Christ for the monks of the Abbey of Drongen. He is recorded in 1597 as making, in collaboration with Gilbert van Veen, several portraits commissioned by Philip II of Spain.
Louis de Caullery was a Flemish painter who is known for his architectural scenes, city views, genre scenes, allegorical compositions and history paintings. He was one of the pioneers of the art genre of courtly gatherings and the garden parties (fête champêtre) in Flemish painting.
Lucas van Valckenborch was a Flemish painter, mainly known for his landscapes. He also made contributions to portrait painting, and allegorical and market scenes. Court painter to Archduke Matthias, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels, he later migrated to Austria and then Germany where he joined members of his extended family of artists who had moved there for religious reasons.
Frans Francken the Younger was a Flemish painter who created altarpieces and furniture panels and gained his reputation chiefly through his small and delicate cabinet pictures with historical, mythological or allegorical themes. He is the best-known and most prolific member of the large Francken family of artists. Franckenplayed an important role in the development of Flemish art in the first half of the 17th century through his innovations in many genres including genre painting and his introduction of new subject matter. He was a frequent collaborator of leading Antwerp painters of his time.
Philips Galle was a Dutch publisher, best known for publishing old master prints, which he also produced as designer and engraver. He is especially known for his reproductive engravings of paintings.
As a resident of Antwerp, Galle witnessed numerous events of the Eighty Years War, notably the siege and looting of the town in 1576 by the Spaniards, called "The Spanish Fury". This rather personal book, which was translated in several languages soon after its first publication, shows Galle as a peace-loving person who intended to stay far away from the political and military turmoil of his era.
Jan Gossaert was a French-speaking painter from the Low Countries also known as Jan Mabuse (the name he adopted from his birthplace, Maubeuge) or Jennyn van Hennegouwe (Hainaut), as he called himself when he matriculated in the Guild of Saint Luke, at Antwerp, in 1503. He was one of the first painters of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting to visit Italy and Rome, which he did in 1508–09, and a leader of the style known as Romanism, which brought elements of Italian Renaissance painting to the north, sometimes with a rather awkward effect. He achieved fame across at least northern Europe, and painted religious subjects, including large altarpieces, but also portraits and mythological subjects, including some nudity.
Jacob Grimmer was a Flemish painter who was active during the Late Renaissance. He specialised in landscapes and genre scenes, often depicting the everyday life of peasants.
His style was strongly influenced by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.
Grimmer's paintings are characterized by detailed, realistic depictions of nature. His landscapes are characterized by wide expanses and intricate detail.
Jacob Grimmer was known for his ability to capture the nuances of human behaviour, so his genre works depict the lives of peasants with a touch of humour and whimsy.
Jacob Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his day. Unlike those contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few short trips to locations elsewhere in the Low Countries, he remained in Antwerp his entire life. As well as being a successful painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries.
Like Rubens, Jordaens painted altarpieces, mythological, and allegorical scenes, and after 1640 — the year Rubens died — he was the most important painter in Antwerp for large-scale commissions and the status of his patrons increased in general. However, he is best known today for his numerous large genre scenes based on proverbs in the manner of his contemporary Jan Brueghel the Elder, depicting The King Drinks and As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young. Jordaens' main artistic influences, besides Rubens and the Brueghel family, were northern Italian painters such as Jacopo Bassano, Paolo Veronese, and Caravaggio.
Jan-Baptiste le Saive the Elder, also Jan le Saive, Jean de Namur le Jeune, was a Flemish Baroque painter.
Apparently Jan Baptiste was trained in painting by his artist father, Jean le Saive (1540-1611). He painted altarpieces and religious scenes in cathedrals, as well as genre scenes and portraits. His son was the painter Jean-Baptiste le Saive the Younger (1604-1641).
Hans Memling (German Hans Memling, Dutch Jan van Mimmelynghe, Latin Johannes Memmelinc or Memlinc) is a Flemish painter of German origin, one of the most important artists of Flanders of the Northern Renaissance. Continuing the late Gothic painting tradition, Memling primarily painted spiritual themes. Born in Hesse, he worked mainly in Bruges, where today there is a museum named after him.
Herri met de Bles is a Flemish artist, along with Joachim Patinir, one of the founders of European landscape painting. He painted mainly landscapes with multi-figured compositions. Like Patinir, his style is characterized by stylized images of rocks and a careful rendering of aerial perspective.
Pieter Neefs the Elder was a Flemish painter specializing in the architectural interiors of churches. While working in Antwerp, he was influenced by the work of the Dutch architectural painters Hendrik van Steenwijk the Elder and the Younger. His main contribution to the genre were church interiors at night, illuminated by two light sources.
Nicolas Neufchatel, known as Nicolas Lucidel, was a Flemish painter based in Germany.
Nicolas trained in Antwerp, where he became acquainted with the work of Frans Floris, Willem Kee and other masters contemporary with him in the 1540s. From 1561 the artist lived in Nuremberg.
Mostly Nicholas Neufchatel worked in Germany and was known as a talented portraitist. About forty of his portraits have survived, including a portrait of Maximilian II, other noble citizens and female images.
Bonaventura Peeters the Elder was a prominent Flemish painter, draughtsman, and etcher specializing in marine art during the 17th century. His extensive body of work encompassed marine battles, storms at sea, shipwrecks, and views of ships in rivers and harbours.
Peeters displayed a keen understanding of ships, capturing their intricate details. His earlier works exhibited tonal landscapes influenced by Dutch painting, while later pieces reflected vibrant colors inspired by Italian classicism. He skillfully depicted dramatic shipwrecks, serene ports, and intricate portrayals of ships. Many of his paintings depicted actual locations along the North Sea and the river Scheldt, while others showcased imagined scenes of far-away Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ports. Peeters also collaborated with family members and fellow artists, and his drawings and engravings were included in notable publications like Blaeu's Atlas Maior.
Frans Pourbus the Elder was a Flemish portrait painter, member of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp.
He is the son of the painter Peter Pourbus and the father of Frans Pourbus the Younger, who is considered a more skilled painter. Pourbus the Elder is considered one of the best portrait painters of his time. His paintings on religious themes are also well known.
Jan Erasmus Quellinus was a Flemish painter and draughtsman, one of the last prominent representatives of the Flemish school of historical and portrait painting of the 17th century.
Jan came from a famous family of painters and sculptors, his father, the painter Erasmus Quellinus II (1607-1678), being his first and principal teacher. Later in Italy, he became a member of the Bentvueghels, a group of mainly Dutch and Flemish artists working in Rome. Back in Antwerp, Jan Quellinus received many commissions for churches in the city and throughout Flanders, and he also had many pupils.
Around 1680, Quellinus worked in Vienna at the Habsburg court as court painter to Emperor Leopold I. Among his other important works was a series of fifteen ceiling paintings of events in the life of Charles V. Some of these works are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp.
Daniël Seghers or Daniel Seghers was a Flemish Jesuit brother and painter who specialized in flower still lifes. He is particularly well known for his contributions to the genre of flower garland painting. His paintings were collected enthusiastically by aristocratic patrons and he had numerous followers and imitators.
Jan Sieberechts was a Flemish landscape painter who after a successful career in Antwerp, emigrated in the latter part of his life to England. In his early works, he developed a personal style of landscape painting, with an emphasis on the Flemish countryside and country life. His later landscapes painted in England retained their Flemish character by representing a universal theme. Siberechts also painted hunting scenes for his English patrons. The topographical views he created in England stand at the beginning of the English landscape tradition.
Frans Snyders was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with initiating a wide variety of new still-life and animal subjects in Antwerp. He was a regular collaborator with leading Antwerp painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.
Pieter Stevens the Younger was a Flemish painter and draughtsman known for his landscapes. He left Flanders to work for the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. The circulation of prints made after a series of romantic Bohemian landscape drawings by Stevens and other artists had an important influence on the development of Flemish and Dutch landscape art in the 17th century.
David Teniers the Younger was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile artist known for his prolific output. He was an innovator in a wide range of genres such as history painting, genre painting, landscape painting, portrait and still life. He is now best remembered as the leading Flemish genre painter of his day. Teniers is particularly known for developing the peasant genre, the tavern scene, pictures of collections and scenes with alchemists and physicians.
He was court painter and the curator of the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the art-loving Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He created a printed catalogue of the collections of the Archduke. He was the founder of the Antwerp Academy, where young artists were trained to draw and sculpt in the hope of reviving Flemish art after its decline following the death of the leading Flemish artists Rubens and Anthony van Dyck in the early 1640s. He influenced the next generation of Northern genre painters as well as French Rococo painters such as Antoine Watteau.
Lodewijk Toeput, nicknamed Il Pozzoserrato, was a Flemish Renaissance landscape painter and draftsman who lived and worked in Italy.
He is known for his canvases and frescoes depicting landscapes and gardens with entertaining people. Lodewijk Toeput also painted paintings of biblical scenes, allegories, and genre scenes from Venetian life. For Venetian churches he created many paintings on religious themes.
Thomas van Apshoven was a Flemish painter-genre painter of the Baroque period.
Thomas came from a creative family: his father was the painter Ferdinand van Apshoven the Elder (1576-1655), who was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp, and his younger brother, Ferdinand van Apshoven the Younger (1630-1694), was also a successful painter.
In addition to rural landscapes, Thomas van Apshoven painted very lively scenes of village holidays and everyday life, peasants in pubs, and students. His works are close in style to David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690).
Gillis van Coninxloo (now also referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo II but previously referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo III) was a Flemish painter of landscapes who played an important role in the development of Northern landscape art at the turn of the 17th century. He spent the last 20 years of his life abroad, first in Germany and later in the Dutch Republic.
Pieter van der Borcht the Elder was a Flemish Renaissance painter, draughtsman and etcher. He is regarded as one of the most gifted botanical painters of the 16th century. Pieter van der Borcht the Elder also introduced new themes such as the 'monkey scene' (also called 'singerie') into Northern art.
Adam Frans van der Meulen was a Flemish painter and draughtsman who was particularly known for his scenes of military campaigns and conquests. Van der Meulen also painted portraits, hunting scenes, paintings of chateaux and landscapes. He created designs for prints and cartoons for tapestries.
Rogier van der Weyden, birth name Rogier de le Pasture, was a Dutch painter, a classic of the Northern Renaissance.
Rogier van der Weyden was one of the most important and influential artists of the Flemish Northern Renaissance, along with Jan van Eyck and Robert Kampen. He became the official painter of the city of Brussels and executed works for the Duke of Burgundy, who ruled the region at the time. Van der Weyden's groups of figures and compositions for portraits and biblical scenes inspired subsequent generations of artists, and his ability to convey strong emotion has been recognized as one of his major contributions to European art. He is considered the first European artist to depict people crying.
The most powerful on the emotional impact on the viewer can be considered the canvas of the artist "The removal from the cross" (1435-1440), it is one of the peaks of European fine art XV century. Currently, the painting is stored in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
One of Rogier van der Weyden's sons, grandson and great-grandson also became artists.
Jan van Dornicke was a South Netherlandish painter who was born in Doornik (nowadays also known as Tournai) in about 1470 and died about 1527. His first name is sometimes spelled "Janssone", and his last name is sometimes spelled "van Doornik" or "van Dornick". He was active in Antwerp from about 1509 to about 1525. His paintings are classified stylistically as Antwerp Mannerism, and he may be the same person as the Master of 1518. This Jan van Dornicke should not be confused with an eighteenth-century Dutch artist who had the same name.
Jan Van Eyck was a Flemish painter, considered one of the founders of Renaissance art. As a young man he worked in the studio of his brother Hubert and then entered the court service of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
Van Eyck became famous for his mastery of portraits, in which he used new techniques and materials, such as oil paint and varnish, which allowed him to create more realistic images. One of the artist's best known works is the Madonna of Chancellor Rolen, considered one of the most significant works of Flemish painting.
Van Eyck was also involved in the creation of many other works, including altarpieces and frescoes. He became an important figure in the development of Flemish and European painting.
Jan van Hemessen was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Van Hemessen had visited Italy during the 1520s, and also Fontainebleau near Paris in the mid 1530s, where he was able to view the work of the colony of Italian artists known as the First School of Fontainebleau, who were working on the decorations for the Palace of Fontainebleau. Van Hemessen's works show his ability to interpret the Italian models into a new Flemish visual vocabulary.
Pieter van Mol was a Flemish painter and draftsman who worked in the Baroque style.
Pieter van Mol became a master and member of the Antwerp Guild of Artists of St. Luke's in 1622. Around 1631 he moved to Paris, where he opened his own studio and worked at the court of Louis XIII as a court painter. Later, among other artists under the patronage of Cardinal Mazarini, he became the organizer and one of the first members of the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, later - the Royal Academy of Painting.
Pieter van Mol painted historical and religious subjects, portraits and allegories. His style was obviously strongly influenced by the work of Rubens.
Bernard van Orley was a versatile Flemish artist and representative of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, who was equally active as a designer of tapestries and, at the end of his life, stained glass. Although he never visited Italy, he belongs to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting, in his case especially by Raphael.
Marinus van Reymerswaele was a Dutch Renaissance painter mainly known for his genre scenes and religious compositions. After studying in Leuven and training and working as an artist in Antwerp, he returned later to work in his native Northern Netherlands. He operated a large workshop which produced many versions of mainly four themes: the tax collectors, the money changer and his wife, the calling of Saint Matthew and St. Jerome in his study.
Frans van Stampart was a Flemish portrait painter, printmaker and publisher. The artist established a reputation as a portraitist of European rulers, aristocrats and higher clergy. He had an international career, which brought him to the court in Vienna where he worked as court painter of the Imperial court. He is also known as the co-publisher of two publications which depict the Imperial art collection in Vienna and for which he also made some of the engravings.
Lucas van Uden was a leading Flemish landscape painter, draughtsman and engraver, who lived and worked in Antwerp. He was a leading landscape painter who collaborated with various local figure painters. His most original works are his drawings.
Van Uden's paintings typically feature idyllic landscapes, often with a religious or mythological theme. His style was characterized by a delicate touch and an emphasis on light and atmospheric effects. He was particularly skilled at creating the illusion of depth and distance in his landscapes.
Lucas van Uden was never part of Peter Paul Rubens' studio, his works are partly indebted to that leading Antwerp master. His technique with its attention to detail, particularly in his smaller works, and his search for decorative elements in the larger paintings place him in the same tradition as Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joos de Momper.
Otto van Veen was a painter, draughtsman, and humanist active primarily in Antwerp and Brussels in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He is known for running a large studio in Antwerp, producing several emblem books, and for being, from 1594 or 1595 until 1598, Peter Paul Rubens' teacher. His role as a classically educated humanist artist (a pictor doctus), reflected in the Latin name by which he is often known, Octavius Vaenius, was influential on the young Rubens, who would take on that role himself.
Sebastian Vrancx was a Flemish Baroque painter, draughtsman and designer of prints who is mainly known for his battle scenes, a genre that he pioneered in Netherlandish painting. He also created landscapes with mythological and allegorical scenes, scenes with robbers, village scenes and celebrations in cities. He was a gifted figure painter who was regularly invited to paint the staffage in compositions of fellow painters. As an active member of a local chamber of rhetoric, he wrote comedies and a number of poems. He was further captain of the Antwerp civil militia.
Johannes (Jan) Wierix was a Flemish engraver, draughtsman, and publisher. He was a very accomplished engraver who made prints after his own designs as well as designs by local and foreign artists.
Together with other members of the Wierix family of engravers he played an important role in spreading appreciation for Netherlandish art abroad as well as in creating art that supported the Catholic cause in the Southern Netherlands. Johannes Wierix is also known for his miniature pen drawings.
Thomas Wyck was a Dutch painter of port views and genre paintings.
He excelled in Italianate paintings of shipping and seaports, populated with many figures, very frequently odd characters such as alchemists and misers. His style resembles that of the loose group of Dutch and Flemish genre painters working in Rome who are called the 'Bamboccianti' and were influenced by the genre paintings of Pieter van Laar. He also painted fairs, public markets, and the interiors of chemists’ laboratories.
