7 most important characteristics of the FLAMENCO school [summary!]

The Flemish school, also known as the Flemish school of painting, encompasses a group of Flemish painters. Some masters who opened their workshops in the Flemish cities, in Flanders, between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, encompassing late Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerism and Baroque styles. This generic term would extend over a wide territory, approximately with the current Belgium. A school of urban character and consequence of the important economic and social development of the merchant bourgeoisie. A movement halfway between Gothic and Renaissance that emerged as a response to international Gothic formulas.

In this lesson from a PROFESOR we tell you what are the main characteristics of the Flemish school, one of the schools with the master painters and the most valued works of Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries.

The economic boom in Flanders, especially the cities of Bruges, Ghent and Iprés, as a result of the development of the textile industry in cloths, brought about the enrichment of the bourgeoisie and a flourishing of art hand in hand with the increase in demand for works of the art.

Between the characteristics of Flemish painting stand out:

• Flemish painting is a realistic paintingdesigned to be exhibited in buyers' homes, commissioning above all portraits.
• That is why a art aimed at the bourgeoisie, the wealthy class with the ability to pay for works of art and use them as a symbol of the wealth and social status of those who acquire them.
• It seeks to express the material beauty of things.
• For it are inspired by the landscape and some reference to Nature always appears, even appearing in interiors through doors or windows.
• the taste for him Naturalism leads the Flemish painters to capture all the details of the objects they represent. They are very thorough and detailed.
• The oil It was an ideal tool for studying the details of the clothing, capturing the richness of the fabrics and brocades, as well as their folds.
• The composition is harmonious, distributing the figures and objects in a balanced way

Continuing with the characteristics of the Flemish school, we are now going to focus on the elements that are related to the technical aspects. They are the following:

• The Colour becomes highly relevant, as do perspective and three-dimensional painting.
• As well painted in oil on board by allowing them to make reflections and transparencies, managing to create atmospheres, areas of light and shadow, in addition to achieving intense and bright colors, with an enameled appearance.
• within the technical aspects that constitute a novelty, the introduction of the prelates or layers of the same color used to create the sensation of depth, something used to paint skies and capture the sensation of transparency.
• Another novel resource is the use of a quick-drying varnish that allows the paint to acquire shine and be better preserved. A technique introduced by the Van Eyck brothers.
• Finally, another technique is also used as a way to bring more light to the painting: the priming of the table with stucco and animal glue to provide a glazed effect.

To finish this lesson on the characteristics of the Flemish school, we are going to attend to the different stages in which this art is divided. They are the following:

• First generation Flemish school, a stage that goes from the end of the 14th century to the middle of the 15th and whose main representatives are the Van Eyck brothers, Van del Weyden or Master Flémalle (Robert Campin). Jan Van Eyck is considered a pioneer of Flemish painting, constituting with the rest an example of virtuosity in the use of oil.
• Second generation Flemish school. A stage that occupies the second half of the fifteenth century and in which the painters Hans Memling, Van der Goes and Gerard David stand out.
• Flemish School of the Renaissance. It extends during the first decades of the 16th century and its main figures are Bosch, Quentin Metsys, Joachim Patinir and Pieter Brueghel the Elder. In this century and the 17th, Antwerp will become the capital of art, being where the first paintings in which the landscape is the only protagonist appear.
• Flemish Baroque School, 17th century, with Rubens as a key figure, as well as Jordaens and Van Dyck.

Image: Drawing.net