The School of Utrecht and the “Italianisers”

      With the genius of the Van Eycks, oil painting, as we have seen, first flourished in Northern countries with incomparable brilliancy. We cannot, however, either before or immediately after them, speak of a Dutch School distinct from the early Flemish School. During the first years of the seventeenth century there were marked differences between the artistic aims of Flanders and of the Netherlands. The entire country had risen against the foreign tyranny and was endeavouring to shake off the Spanish yoke. The struggle in the Southern provinces was neither as intense nor as stubborn as in those of the North. Whilst the former accepted the government to which for long afterwards they were subject, the others would not agree to any arrangement and would not lay down their arms until they had secured their complete independence. With this political division, a separation also took place between the two schools, which had hitherto been united. Faithful to its old traditions, the Flemish School considered Antwerp as its principal centre. The Dutch School, on the other hand, inaugurated a new and quite original art under very special conditions.