SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING(FLEMISH PAINTING)

Quentin Massys (1460?-1530) and Mostert (1474-1556?), a Dutchman by birth, but, like Bouts, Flemish by influence, were among the last of the Gothic painters in Flanders, and yet they began the introduction of Italian features in their painting. Massys led in architectural backgrounds, and from that the Italian example spread to subjects, figures,oil painting on canvas for sale, methods, until the indigenous Flemish art became a thing of the past. Massys was, at Antwerp, the most important painter of his day, following the old Flemish methods with many improvements. His work was detailed, and yet executed with a broader, freer brush than formerly, and with more variety in color, modelling, expression of character. He increased figures to almost life-size, giving them greater importance than landscape or architecture. The type was still lean and angular, and often contorted with emotion. His Money-Changers and Misers (many of them painted by his son) were a genre of his own. With him closed the Gothic school, and with him began. modern abstract art oil painting
ANTWERP SCHOOL, the pupils of which went to Italy, and eventually became Italianized. Mabuse (1470?-1541) was the first to go. His early work shows the influence of Massys and David. He was good in composition, color, and brush-work, but lacked in originality, as did all the imitators of Italy. Franz Floris (1518?-1570) was a man of talent, much admired in his time, because he brought back reminiscences of Michael Angelo to Antwerp. His influence was fatal upon his followers, of whom there were many,art oil painting reproduction, like the Franckens and De Vos. Italy and Roman methods, models, architecture, subjects, began to rule everywhere.
From Brussels Barent van Orley (1491?-1542) left early for Italy, and became essentially Italian, though retaining some Flemish color. He painted in oil, tempera, and for glass, and is supposed to have gained his brilliant colors by using a gilt ground. His early works remind one of David. Cocxie (1499-1592), the Flemish Raphael, was but an indifferent imitator of the Italian Raphael. At Liége the Romanists, so called, began with Lambert Lombard (1505-1566), of whose work nothing authentic remains except drawings. At Bruges Peeter Pourbus(1510?-1584) was about the last one of the good portrait-painters of the time. Another excellent portrait-painter,oil paintings on canvas for sale, a pupil of Scorel, wasAntonio Moro (1512?-1578?). He had much dignity, force, and elaborateness of costume, and stood quite by himself. There were other painters of the time who were born or trained in Flanders, and yet became so naturalized in other countries that in their work they do not belong to Flanders. Neuchatel (1527?-1590?), Geldorp (1553-1616?),Calvaert (1540?-1619), Spranger (1546-1627?), and others, were of this group. oil paintings for sale online
Among all the strugglers in Italian imitation only a few landscapists held out for the Flemish view. Paul Bril (1554-1626) was the first of them. He went to Italy, but instead of following the methods taught there, he taught Italians his own view of landscape. His work was a little dry and formal, but graceful in composition, and good in light and color. The Brueghels—there were three of them—also stood out for Flemish landscape, introducing it nominally as a background for small figures, but in reality for the beauty of the landscape itself. oil paintings for sale uk

FIG. 77.—RUBENS. PORTRAIT OF YOUNG WOMAN.
HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURGH.

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SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING: This was the great century of Flemish painting, though the painting was not entirely Flemish in method or thought. The influence of Italy had done away with the early simplicity, purity, and religious pathos of the Van Eycks. During the sixteenth century everything had run to bald imitation of Renaissance methods. Then came a new master-genius, Rubens (1577-1640), who formed a new art founded in method upon Italy, yet distinctly northern in character. Rubens chose all subjects for his brush,dafen oil painting village,  but the religious altar-piece probably occupied him as much as any. To this he gave little of Gothic sentiment, but everything of Renaissance splendor. His art was more material than spiritual, more brilliant and startling in sensuous qualities, such as line and color, than charming by facial expression or tender feeling. Something of the Paolo Veronese cast of mind, he conceived things largely, and painted them proportionately—large Titanic types, broad schemes and masses of color,oil paintings of nature, great sweeping lines of beauty. One value of this largeness was its ability to hold at a distance upon wall or altar. Hence, when seen to-day, close at hand, in museums, people are apt to think Rubens's art coarse and gross.
There is no prettiness about his type. It is not effeminate or sentimental, but rather robust, full of life and animal spirits, full of blood, bone, and muscle—of majestic dignity, grace, and power, and glowing with splendor of color. In imagination, in conception of art purely as art,abstract art oil paintings, and not as a mere vehicle to convey religious or mythological ideas, in mental grasp of the pictorial world, Rubens stands with Titian and Velasquez in the very front rank of painters. As a technician, he was unexcelled. A master of composition, modelling, and drawing, a master of light, and a color-harmonist of the rarest ability, he, in addition, possessed the most certain, adroit, and facile hand that ever handled a paint-brush. Nothing could be more sure than the touch of Rubens, nothing more easy and masterful. He was trained in both mind and eye, a genius by birth and by education, a painter who saw keenly, and was able to realize what he saw with certainty. original oil paintings wholesale
Well-born, ennobled by royalty, successful in both court and studio, Rubens lived brilliantly and his life was a series of triumphs. He painted enormous canvases, and the number of pictures, altar-pieces, mythological decorations, landscapes, portraits scattered throughout the galleries of Europe, and attributed to him, is simply amazing. He was undoubtedly helped in many of his canvases by his pupils, but the works painted by his own hand make a world of art in themselves. He was the greatest painter of the North, a full-rounded, complete genius, comparable to Titian in his universality. His precursors and masters, Van Noort (1562-1641) and Vaenius (1558-1629), gave no strong indication of the greatness of Ruben's art, and his many pupils, though echoing his methods, never rose to his height in mental or artistic grasp. oil paintings of flowers

FIG. 78.—VAN DYCK. PORTRAIT OF CORNELIUS VAN DER GEEST.
NAT. GAL. LONDON.

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Van Dyck (1599-1641) was his principal pupil. He followed Rubens closely at first, though in a slighter manner technically, and with a cooler coloring. After visiting Italy he took up with the warmth of Titian. Later, in England,he became careless and less certain. His rank is given him not for his figure-pieces. They were not always successful, lacking as they did in imagination and originality, though done with force. His best work was his portraiture,oil paintings for sale uk, for which he became famous, painting nobility in every country of Europe in which he visited. At his best he was a portrait-painter of great power, but not to be placed in the same rank with Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Velasquez. His characters are gracefully posed, and appear to be aristocratic. There is a noble distinction about them, and yet even this has the feeling of being somewhat affected. The serene complacency of his lords and ladies finally became almost a mannerism with him, though never a disagreeable one. He died early, a painter of mark, but not the greatest portrait-painter of the world, as is sometimes said of him. oil paintings of italy