THE Flemish school of painting, which developed without interruption,
consisted of two chief periods : one in the XVth century, with the
creative genius of the van Eycks, and one in the XVIIth century, with the
genius of Rubens; between these two there lay during the XVIth century
a period of uncertainty, research and experiment, which contained however
several artists of the first rank, such as Lucas van Leyden, Pieter Brueghel
the Elder and Antonio Moro. The tradition established during these three
centuries was maintained in the XVIIIth century by works of art of a quality
sadly underestimated to-day, and in the XIXth century by an output the
richness and originality of which is only surpassed by that of the French
nation.

This robust vitality and this double flowering of genius at an interval
of two hundred years endow the Flemish school of painting with such strength
and influence that it ranks in Europe next only to the Italian school. Here
is a fundamental characteristic which we must remember before beginning
the study of any particular period.

We must also note that at the beginning of the XVIIth century, after
the political secession of 1609 (the twelve years' truce), the painters of the
Northern provinces, who previously belonged to the same school as those of
the Southern provinces, definitively broke away to form the school of Dutch
art. and therewith a very different style. The two schools evolved in opposite
directions, following the needs, religions and customs, henceforth so dissimilar,
of the two countries.

In the South, the Flemish painters who worked for princes and for a
creed which was full of pomp and commanded a stately respect, although
it could be gracious at times, found ample scope for developing the original
qualities of the school, which had already appeared in the XVth century,
namely a feeling for colour and for the beauty of the subject, to which circum-
stances added a love of pageantry, an epic grandeur and a brilliance of colour
and movement. Henceforth the work of the Flemish school differed widely
from that of the Dutch school, in which the artists made full use of the effects
of light and shade, sought to render the realistic atmosphere of a simple
homely life, and delighted in painting the details of humble and intimate
scenes. The works of the two great masters Rubens and Rembrandt, who
dominate the Flemish and the Dutch schools respectively, clearly
demonstrate these differences.

In the XVIIth century with which we are solely concerned in this work,
Flemish painting was so prolific that it is difficult to consider it as a single
whole. To make a rapid survey we would have to confine ourselves to
generalities, and examine the school only in so far as it enriched and widened
the range of human sensibility; thus it would inevitably be personified in
Rubens, who was so far ahead of his time and of his country that even modern
art is indebted to his genius. Apart from his work we would have to content
ourselves with considering a few of the paintings in which van Dyck and
Jordaens reached a high level of aesthetic perception.

We could however approach the subject from a different angle. As
well as studying the work of Rubens, we could also consider that of the

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