MIDDLE AGES OR RENAISSANCE?

Nineteenth-century historical discussions of early Netherlandish painting were primarily concerned with its place within the development of European civilization. But the more that was written about it, the more enigmatic the art of the van Eyck brothers and their contemporaries seemed to be, defying easy assignment to one of the usual categories. Was it a new beginning or a final stage? How was it related to the art developing elsewhere in Europe, especially in Italy? What did it have in common with the art, that flourished later on in the Low Countries? And how did it reflect the social life of its day? To what extent did its character represent Netherlandish civilization in general? Already in the first monographic studies of early Netherlandish art, connections were made with the national character of the region. In the course of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, reaching a highpoint in the years prior to World War I, the thrust of these interpretations became more and more political and nationalistic.

The nationalistic element in the debate became more important whenever early Netherlandish art was linked to questions of progress and decline. Every nineteenth-century author agreed that it was characterized by an exceptional precision in the rendering of visible reality. In this respect it surpassed anything previously accomplished in art. Moreover, it perfected the technique of oil painting, which was subsequently adopted throughout Europe. There were thus reasons to see fifteenth-century painting in the Low Countries as the origin of a new period. On the other hand, however, it still clung to Gothic forms and traditional religious subjects and its technical innovation was not matched by a progressive development in the style. Before long it lapsed into repetition, and was revived only around 1500, through the appropriation of new stylistic elements from Italy. From this perspective, it was no more than a late stage of medieval art, an ending rather than a glorious beginning.

Much depended on what the current viewers thought of the developments in contemporary art. Adherents of the classical ideal, which remained the norm for the academies far into the nineteenth century, condemned the realism of the early Netherlandish painters as lacking in taste and discernment, despite the artists’ undeniable technical skill.