Course Description

Instructor: Dorothy Fletcher, Senior Lecturer Emerita, Art History

Early Netherlandish painting is admired for its rich, jewellike colors, luminosity, meticulous detail, and remarkable textural effects, all made possible by the new technique of oil painting. In this course, we will look at the world of selected important artists in this period of Western art history, from the graceful style of manuscript illuminators in the late 14th century to the more robust style of panel painters in the 15th through mid-16th centuries. Artists included will be the Limbourg Brothers, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hieronymous Bosch, Pieter Brueghel the Elder and others. We will examine the changing balance of religious subjects on the one hand, and emerging secular subject (such as landscape, portraiture, and peasant life) on the other. We will also consider the economic, political, social, and religious contexts in which these paintings were produced.