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Flemish Style:
The Flemish oil technique was, like tempera, used for painting panels. However, instead of egg as a binder, the Flemish relied on oil or varnish, which has a certain transparency and leaves the painting with a shiny surface.
The F t major work of Flemish painting, and a model and inspiration for those that followed, was the Ghent altarpiece, a large polyptych in the Cathedral of St. Bavon, Ghent. Most of the panels are probably the work of Hubert van Eyck (1366P-1426), but the altarpiece was completed in 1432 by his brother Jan (1385P-1441).Flemish workers were imported into other countries, including Spain, Germany, and Italy, though the industry in these countries never assumed very great importance. Italian tapestries of the earlier periods are scarcely distinguishable from the Flemish. Later they assumed a character of their own, and in the Baroque period, they took on the same characteristics as other contemporary arts.
Jan was something of a courtier and therefore had few pupils. Rogier van der Weyden (1399?-1464) spread the Flemish style. His work tended to be more emotional, as in the Deposition (about 1435; Prado, Madrid), and had a sculpturelike quality. The Portinari altarpiece (about 1476), the masterpiece of Hugo van der Goes (1440?-1482), has more monumentality than most Flemish paintings, but hardly less realism, as its uncouth shepherds testify.
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