The artistic predominance of the Flemish provinces is a mere illusion.
Bruges and Ghent in the fifteenth, Antwerp in the sixteenth century
were flourishing commercial centres with an international prosperous
mercantile society which attracted artistic talent. In addition to the
Burgundian princes, who were of real importance as patrons of artists and
introduced the exacting demands of the French court, we note with some
surprise a comparatively large number of Italian merchants as patrons
( Tommaso Portinari, Jacopo Tani, Giovanni Arnolfini and others). In the
sixteenth century the export of art works to Spain assumed vast dimen-
sions and Spanish demands determined the work in the Antwerp work-
shops. A study of Dürer's Netherlandish diary gives a good idea of the
international character of the upper strata of the Antwerp population.

If then what we might call the consumers were by no means pure
Flemish, the producers were still less so. Of the masters who set the course
for Bruges art hardly one was of Flemish origin. Jan van Eyck came from
Maaseyck, a place on the Meuse north of Maestricht, where the political
boundaries of Belgium, Germany and Holland meet. The area around
Maaseyck should be kept in mind as a central source for Netherlandish
art. Hans Memlinc came from Germany, presumably from Mömlingen
on the Middle Rhine, ¹ Gerard David from Oudewater, which lies in
Holland between Gouda and Utrecht. Jan Provost was a native of Mons,
that is to say from Hainaut in the South, Ambrosius Benson from Milan.
With the exception of Hugo van der Goes and Justus van Gent who may
have come from the Flemish city of Ghent, no important painter of the
fifteenth century, and very few of the sixteenth, can with any probability
be traced to Flanders.

Round about 1500 Antwerp became the artistic reservoir and melting
pot. Painters gathered there from every province in the Netherlands.
Of the celebrities who determined the character of the art of Antwerp
with its flourishing export, Quentin Massys had immigrated from
Louvain ( Brabant), Jan Gossaert from Maubeuge (Hainaut), the Master
of the Death of the Virgin is probably identical with Joos who came from
Cleves. Large numbers of unknown artists are entered in the surviving
Antwerp guild lists and in many cases the names, though they tell us
nothing else, at least show the place of origin. The North ( Holland) and
the East ( Northern Brabant and Limburg) seem to have been particularly
rich in artistic talent. Roughly speaking the situation may be summed up
as follows: the flourishing commercial cities, Bruges in the fifteenth
century, later Antwerp, were comparatively poor in artistic talent but

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