Painting in Oil in the Low Countries and Its Spread to Southern Europe

The versatility of oil paint made it an essential factor in realizing the new artistic vision of early Netherlandish painting, which combined extraordinary realism with brilliant color.
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Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece), Robert Campin  Netherlandish, Oil on oak, Netherlandish
Robert Campin
ca. 1427–32
The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment, Jan van Eyck  Netherlandish, Oil on canvas, transferred from wood
Jan van Eyck
ca. 1436–38
Portrait of a Carthusian, Petrus Christus  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Petrus Christus
1446
Tommaso di Folco Portinari (1428–1501); Maria Portinari (Maria Maddalena Baroncelli, born 1456), Hans Memling  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Hans Memling
ca. 1470
A Goldsmith in his Shop, Petrus Christus  Netherlandish, Oil on oak panel
Petrus Christus
1449
The Lamentation, Petrus Christus  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Petrus Christus
ca. 1450
Virgin and Child, Dieric Bouts  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Dieric Bouts
ca. 1455–60
Francesco d'Este (born ca. 1429, died after 1486), Rogier van der Weyden  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Rogier van der Weyden
ca. 1460
Portrait of an Old Man, Hugo van der Goes  Netherlandish, Oil on paper, laid down on wood
Hugo van der Goes
ca. 1470–75
Christ Crowned with Thorns, Antonello da Messina (Antonello di Giovanni d'Antonio)  Italian, Oil, possibly over tempera, on wood
Antonello da Messina (Antonello di Giovanni d'Antonio)
Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara, Hans Memling  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Hans Memling
early 1480s
Young Man Holding a Book, Master of the View of Saint Gudula  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Master of the View of Saint Gudula
ca. 1480
The Annunciation, Hans Memling  Netherlandish, Oil on panel, transferred to canvas
Hans Memling
1480–89
Studies of ten (?) heads and two ears (recto); Studies of three figures and a head (verso), Gerard David  Netherlandish, Metalpoint on prepared paper; verso: black chalk
Gerard David
ca. 1498
Virgin and Child with Four Angels, Gerard David  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Gerard David
ca. 1510–15
The Penitence of Saint Jerome, Joachim Patinir  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Joachim Patinir
ca. 1515
The Adoration of the Magi, Quinten Massys  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Quinten Massys
1526
The Harvesters, Pieter Bruegel the Elder  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
1565

The beginnings of oil painting are recorded as early as the twelfth century in Northern Europe. But it was the virtuoso handling of the medium on panel by early Netherlandish painters such as Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden in the fifteenth century that represented a turning point in its eventual adoption as the major painting medium in Europe in the sixteenth century. By then, Jan van Eyck had been incorrectly credited with the “invention” of oil painting.

The versatility of oil paint made it an essential factor in realizing the new artistic vision of early Netherlandish painting, which combined extraordinary realism with brilliant color. Admixture in oils makes most pigments translucent, allowing artists to apply their colors in thin layers, or glazes, thereby generating the rich, glowing reds and greens seen for example in the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck, the Portrait of a Carthusian () by Petrus Christus, or Hans Memling’s Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara (). The convincing realism of Robert Campin’s Merode Triptych, and in particular the scene of Saint Joseph in his workshop, also relies in part upon the capacity of oil paint to allow even brown or earth pigments to be glazed across broad areas to develop shadowy half-tones or a sense of light filtering into a dim interior (detail, The Annunciation Triptych, ()).

Oil paint is highly flexible in that it admits application both in thick impasto and fine detail: countless types of descriptive brushstroke are possible in oil. Since it is slow drying, it can be carefully blended to make soft, seamless shadows essential for the suggestion of three-dimensional form, as well as worked while still wet. All these properties make it especially suitable to communicate the reflective properties of different surfaces, from polished marble to dazzling jewels, from soft velvet to luminous highlights on hard metal plate: such textural differences are flawlessly captured in Van Eyck’s Van der Paele Virgin. Similarly, the oil medium is able to imitate convincingly fleeting effects of rippling, transparent water or moving clouds, as shown in Van Eyck’s diptych of the Crucifixion and Last Judgment ().

In stark contrast, the medium of egg tempera, traditional in Southern European panel painting, results in a more schematic rendition of light, shade, and color. Egg dries quickly to a relatively light tone, is suitable for bright colors, and must be applied thinly in short, hatched strokes. Although he may have used a little oil to modify the egg tempera medium in his Virgin and Child, Carlo Crivelli applied the egg medium in distinct, light diagonal strokes, following traditional practice.

In 1464 the Italian architect Filarete expressed admiration for the Netherlandish oil technique specifically. Hints of interest among Southern European artists are evident well before this: the use of oil by the Ferrarese painter Cosmè Tura in the late 1450s suggests study of the technique of Rogier van der Weyden, whose works were collected by Tura’s patron, Leonello d’Este. In Naples, Niccolò Colantonio had adopted an oil technique by about 1445, perhaps as a result of links with the Netherlandish artist Bartélemy d’Eyck, who in all likelihood had been in the city around 1440, and who was possibly related to Jan van Eyck. Colantonio himself may have taught the Sicilian Antonello da Messina, whose experiments in oil were matched by his proficiency in rendering minute detail in the Netherlandish fashion (Christ Crowned with Thorns, ()). The traditional view that Antonello introduced oil painting to Venice during his stay in 1475/6, however, is belied by Giovanni Bellini’s use of oil as early as the 1460s, reflecting an earlier knowledge of the medium, perhaps inspired in part by imported pictures. A parallel structure of adoption occurred in Spain. In his will of 1448, the artist Joan Reixach, active in Valencia, specified that a painting he owned by Jan van Eyck was painted in oil, still a novelty in Aragon. It has been proposed that the itinerant painter Bartolomé Bermejo, recorded in Aragon from the late 1460s to the 1490s, was trained by a Netherlandish master, but this may undervalue the knowledge of oil painting available in Spain itself, built up through strong cultural links with the Netherlands. Other artists in Southern Europe learned Netherlandish handling of oil through a combination of travel, imported paintings, and information gleaned from those who had contacts with the Netherlands.

During the later fifteenth and early sixteenth century, oil painting technique in the North grew ever more economical and rapid. Such developments are exemplified by the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, whose painting The Harvesters, of 1565 (), displays very thin, luminous paint layers which do not even conceal the drawings below, supplemented by direct, descriptive brushstrokes in thicker paint on top.


Contributors

Susan Jones
Department of Art, Caldwell College

October 2002


Further Reading

Dunkerton, Jill "North and South: Painting Techniques in Renaissance Venice." In Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer, and Titian, edited by Bernard Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown, pp. 92–113. Exhibition catalogue. Milan: Bompiani, 2000.

Hassall, Catherine "Oil Painting." In The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, vol. 23, pp. 375–79. New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996.

Roy, Ashok "Van Eyck's Technique: The Myth and the Reality, I." In Investigating Jan van Eyck, edited by Susan Foister, Sue Jones, and Delphine Cool, pp. 97–100. The Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.


Citation

View Citations

Jones, Susan. “Painting in Oil in the Low Countries and Its Spread to Southern Europe.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/optg/hd_optg.htm (October 2002)