The supreme innovators of 15th-century painting hailed from Tuscany and Flanders. With the decline of the Unitarian concept of International Gothic, but prior to the establishment of Italian Renaissance models, the influence of Flemish painting spread rapidly through Europe. Its focal points were not confined to Flanders itself and to the adjacent German lands but extended to France, Spain, and Switzerland. The northern painters introduced a new manner of evoking reality, of rendering the reflections of light, of portraying the skin and material essence. The Flemish artists were not intellectuals, but were sharp observers of natural detail, and displayed an extraordinary descriptive capacity in their representation of open landscape. The potential scope afforded by their use of oils enabled them to create masterpieces of painterly technique. Some of the Flemish artists moved to Italy, others accepted work on commission; examples of both were on show in Florence, a city that was an early follower of the new style. Among the many foreign artists represented were the Frenchmen Jean Fouquet and Nicolas Froment, and the Flemish-born Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, Hugo van der Goes, and Hans Memling, the last already known to Sandro Botticelli and whose branches of delicate foliage were reworked by Raphael.

 

Hans Memling, Portrait of Benedetto Portinari, 1487, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
Memling designed this portrait with a rural background. This was to have vast repercussions in early 16th-century Italian painting.
 

Jan van Eyck, The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, c.1432,
Musee du Louvre, Paris.
At one time van Eyck was reputed to have invented oil painting,
although it had already been known in the classical world.
This technique permitted the artist to achieve greater nuances of tone,
to enlarge the color range, and to obtain darker effects in the modelling.