text: President Bush signed the bill into law on December 26, 2007, and it became Public Law 110–161. However, by mid-2009, Congress had removed all the IMET restrictions and failed to renew the Nethercutt Amendment.


title: United States and the International Criminal Court

text: Article 98 of the Rome Statute prohibits the ICC from requesting assistance or the surrender of a person to the ICC if to do so would require the state to "act inconsistently" with its obligations under international law or international agreements unless the state or the third-party state waives the immunity or grants cooperation. The U.S. has interpreted this article to mean that its citizens cannot be transferred to the ICC by any state that has signed a bilateral agreement with the U.S. prohibiting such a transfer, even if the state is a member of the Rome Statute. The U.S. actively pressured states to conclude such so-called Article 98 agreements, otherwise known as bilateral immunity agreements (BIAs). The Bush Administration claimed that the BIAs were drafted out of concern that existing agreements—particularly the status of forces agreements or status of mission agreements (SOFAs or SOMAs)—did not sufficiently protect Americans from the jurisdiction of the ICC.


text: Until 2008, the ASPA and the Nethercutt Amendment required the cessation of ESF to those states which had ratified the Rome Statute unless they signed a BIA (though they could be exempted from this if they were a member of NATO or a major non-NATO ally). ESF entails a wide range of governance programs including international counter-terrorism efforts, peace process programs, anti-drug trafficking initiatives, truth and reconciliation commissions, wheelchair distribution, and HIV/AIDS education, among others. In March 2006, Condoleezza Rice said that blocking military aid to those seeking to fight terrorism is "sort of the same as shooting ourselves in the foot".


text: Mali, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya publicly rejected signing BIAs in 2003, and subsequently saw their development aid funding cut by more than 89 million dollars. According to the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, as of 2006, 52 countries had "rejected U.S. efforts to sign bilateral immunity agreements (BIAs), despite unrelenting U.S. pressure and the threat and actual loss of military assistance". By Spring 2006, such agreements had been accepted by approximately one hundred governments and were under consideration by approximately eighteen more.


text: By 2009, with Obama in office, the laws cutting aid unless BIAs were no longer in place; the Nethercutt Amendment had not been renewed, and the restrictions mandated in the ASPA had already been repealed under Bush. As of that year, 102 BIAs had been signed, though it was not clear how many were legally binding, and the U.S. had ceased pursuing more agreements.


text: Romania was one of the first countries to sign an Article 98 agreement with the United States. In response to Romania's action, the European Union requested that candidate countries not sign Article 98 agreements with the United States until the EU ministers had met to agree upon a common position. In September 2002, the Council of the European Union adopted a common position, permitting member states to enter into Article 98 agreements with the United States, but only concerning U.S. military personnel, U.S. diplomatic or consular officials, and persons extradited, sent to their territories by the United States with their permission; not the general protection of U.S. nationals that the United States sought. Furthermore, the common position provided that any person protected from ICC prosecution by such agreements would have to be prosecuted by the United States. This was in agreement with the original position of the EU, that Article 98 agreements were allowed to cover these restricted classes of persons but could not cover all the citizens of a state.


text: In July 2002, the United States threatened to use its Security Council veto to block renewal of the mandates of several U.N. peacekeeping operations, unless the Security Council agreed to permanently exempt U.S. nationals from the Court's jurisdiction. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said that the U.S. proposal "flies in the face of treaty law", risks undermining the Rome Statute, and could end up discrediting the Security Council.


text: Initially, the United States sought to prevent prosecution of personnel on U.N. missions by any country except that of their nationality. The Security Council rejected that approach, and the United States made use of a provision of the Rome Statute that allowed the Security Council to direct the ICC not exercise its jurisdiction over a certain matter for up to one year. The United States sought the Security Council to convey such a request to the ICC concerning U.S. personnel on United Nations peacekeeping and enforcement operations. Further, the U.S. sought to have that request renewed automatically each year. (If renewed automatically each year, then another Security Council resolution would be required to cease the request, which the United States could then veto, which would effectively make the request permanent.) ICC supporters argued that the Rome Statute requires that, for the request to be valid, it must be voted upon each year in the Security Council. Therefore, an automatically renewing request would violate the Statute. By international law, questions regarding the interpretation of the U.N. Charter may only be interpreted by the U.N. Security Council. The U.N. Charter requires that all U.N. members abide by the decisions of the Security Council, so only ICC members who are not also U.N. members are not bound.


text: Other members of the Security Council opposed this request; however, they were increasingly concerned about the future of peacekeeping operations. The United Kingdom eventually negotiated a compromise, whereby the United States would be granted its request, but only for a period of one year. A new Security Council vote would be required in July each year for the exclusion of peacekeepers from ICC jurisdiction to be continued. All members of the Security Council eventually endorsed United Nations Security Council Resolution 1422.


text: NGO supporters of the ICC, along with several countries not on the Security Council (including Canada and New Zealand), protested the legality of the resolution. The resolution was made under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which requires a "threat to international peace or security" for the Security Council to act; ICC supporters have argued that a U.S. threat to veto peacekeeping operations does not constitute a threat to international peace or security. In such a case, the U.N. Charter states that the Security Council will determine if the Security Council's actions conformed with the U.N. Charter.


text: A resolution to exempt citizens of the United States from jurisdiction of the ICC was renewed in 2003 by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1487. However, the Security Council refused to renew the exemption again in 2004 after pictures emerged of U.S. troops torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and the U.S. withdrew its demand.


title: Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury

text: Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, (27 August 1893 – 23 February 1972), known as Viscount Cranborne from 1903 to 1947, was a British Conservative politician.


text: Nicknamed "Bobbety", Salisbury was the eldest son of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, by his wife Lady Cicely Gore, daughter of the 5th Earl of Arran, and the grandson of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Prime Minister 1895–1902. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, receiving an honorary Doctorate of Civil Laws in 1951.


text: Salisbury served in the Army during the First World War. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant into the Grenadier Guards (SR) in 1915 and served until the war's end. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and Chevalier Order of the Crown of Belgium. When the war ended, he worked at the Westminster Bank. In 1928, he was appointed a director and to the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts; he was promoted to chairman of the commission in 1957.


text: Salisbury, as Viscount Cranborne, was elected as a Conservative to the House of Commons as MP for South Dorset in 1929. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Lord Privy Seal in 1934 in Ramsay MacDonald's National Government, he was promoted serving as Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1935 to 1938. He was made Paymaster-General by Winston Churchill in May 1940 for the duration of the Battle of Britain but was appointed Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs from 1940 to 1942.


text: In 1941, he was summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration in one of his father's titles as Baron Cecil of Essendon. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies in February–November 1942, Lord Privy Seal between 1942 and 1943, Leader of the House of Lords between 1942 and 1945 and again Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs between 1943 and 1945. As a friend of Churchill, in 1943, he was appointed President of the English-Speaking Union to promote the universality of the language throughout the British Empire. His final wartime appointment was as President of the University College of the South West for a statutory ten years before it was converted to university status.


text: In 1947, King George VI made Salisbury a Knight of the Order of the Garter, and he succeeded his father in the marquessate shortly afterwards. He became High Steward of Hertfordshire, where he lived, in 1947, shortly before the office was abolished.


text: During the 1950s, when his party returned to office, successively, he served Churchill, Anthony Eden, and Harold Macmillan as Lord Privy Seal from 1951 to 1952; Leader of the House of Lords from 1951 to 1957; Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in 1952 and Lord President of the Council from December 1952 to 1957. During the period of the coronation of Elizabeth II, he was appointed Acting Foreign Secretary, as Eden was then seriously ill after a series of botched operations on his bile duct.


text: Lord Salisbury was known as a hardline imperialist. In 1952, as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, he tried to make permanent the exile of Seretse Khama, "kgosi" (leader) of the Bamangwato people in Bechuanaland, for marrying a white British woman. During the 1960s, Lord Salisbury continued to be a staunch defender of the white-dominated governments in South Africa and in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and was granted the Freedom of the City of Salisbury (which had been named after his grandfather) on a visit in 1956. He was also a fierce opponent of liberal-left attempts to reform the House of Lords, but he created what is known as the Salisbury Convention, under which the House of Lords will not oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto.


text: In January 1957, Eden resigned as prime minister. The two candidates were Rab Butler and Harold Macmillan. The Queen took advice from Winston Churchill (who backed Macmillan), Edward Heath (who, as Chief Whip, was aware of backbench opinion), and Salisbury, who interviewed the Cabinet one by one and with his famous speech impediment, asked each one whether he was for "Wab or Hawold" (it is thought that only between one and three were for "Wab"). To the surprise of the media, the advice was overwhelmingly to appoint Macmillan as Prime Minister instead of Butler.


text: Lord Salisbury resigned from his position as Leader of the House of Lords in opposition to the Government's decision to release Archbishop Makarios from his detention in Seychelles. Makarios, the Archbishop of Cyprus, had been arrested because the British perceived that he was encouraging inter-communal violence and terrorism in Cyprus during the so-called 'Cyprus Question'. He became the first president of the Conservative Monday Club in January 1962, when he stated "there was never a greater need for true conservatism than there is today". He held the post until his death in 1972.


text: Salisbury's cultural pursuits were recognised when he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts that year. These artistic credentials were enhanced as a Trustee of the National Gallery from 1960 to 1966.


text: Apart from his political career, Salisbury was Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 1951 until 1971. In 1970, students at the university staged an occupation at Senate House to demand his removal over his support for apartheid and other views.


text: Lord Salisbury married Elizabeth Vere Cavendish, daughter of Lord Richard Cavendish (grandson of the 7th Duke of Devonshire) and his wife Lady Moyra de Vere Beauclerk (a daughter of The 10th Duke of St Albans), on 8 December 1915. They had three sons, two of whom predeceased their parents:


text: Lord Salisbury died in February 1972, at 78, and was succeeded by his eldest and only surviving son, Robert, who became the 6th Marquess. Lady Salisbury died on 5 June 1982.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Auburn Hills is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 21,412 at the 2010 census. Before incorporating as a city in 1983, the area was part of the now-defunct Pontiac Township. It is home to Oakland University and the U.S. headquarters of Stellantis, BorgWarner, Chrysler, and Volkswagen. The city is a northern suburb of Metro Detroit and is around north of the city of Detroit.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: In 1908, automobile pioneer John Dodge bought a farmhouse northeast of Auburn Heights to use as his country retreat. His oldest child, Winifred Dodge, married real estate baron Wesson Seyburn, who built his own country retreat north of Auburn Heights. The estate included hunting land, dog kennels, a swimming pool, horse stables, and a Colonial Revival house. Pontiac Township purchased the estate in 1976, and adapted the buildings for government use. Today, it is known as the Auburn Hills Civic Center.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: The first use of the name "Auburn Hills," in 1964, was by Oakland Community College. They named their campus (a former Nike missile base) at Featherstone and Squirrel roads for the town and the hilly terrain in the area. Besides Oakland Community College, three other colleges, Oakland University, Baker College, and Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School have campuses partially within the city limits.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Auburn Hills began as Pontiac Township, including the village of Auburn, in 1821, at what is today the corner of Auburn and Squirrel roads. Situated on the Clinton River, it was named by Aaron Webster, the first settler, for Auburn, New York. His sawmill and grist mill attracted settlers to Auburn. After the streets were laid out in 1826, Auburn rivaled nearby Pontiac until the 1860s, when it lost its own prosperity. The town was renamed Amy in 1880, and it officially became Auburn Heights in 1919. Pontiac Township bordered the city of Pontiac on two sides. The township attempted to incorporate as Pontiac Heights in 1971, but was denied by state officials. Pontiac Township became a charter township in 1978, to protect itself from further annexation. In 1983, Pontiac Township merged with the village of Auburn Heights to become the City of Auburn Hills. It is not to be confused with the similarly named city of Auburn, Michigan, that exists in Bay County, near Saginaw Bay.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.24%) is water.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 21,412 people, 8,844 households, and 4,923 families living in the city. The population density was . There were 9,965 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 66.3% White, 18.5% African American, 0.3% Native American, 8.9% Asian, 2.7% from other races, and 3.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.8% of the population.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: There were 8,844 households, of which 27.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.8% were married couples living together, 12.4% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.5% had a male householder with no wife present, and 44.3% were non-families. 33.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.24 and the average family size was 2.90.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: The median age in the city was 31.4 years. 19.4% of residents were under the age of 18; 17.8% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 31.9% were from 25 to 44; 21.6% were from 45 to 64; and 9.4% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.4% female and 51.6% male.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 19,837 people, 8,064 households, and 4,604 families living in the city. The population density was . There were 8,822 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 75.92% White, 13.22% African American, 0.32% Native American, 6.33% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 1.56% from other races, and 2.61% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.50% of the population.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: There were 8,064 households, out of which 26.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them; 43.0% were married couples living together; 10.5% had a female householder with no husband present and 42.9% were non-families. 33.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.25 and the average family size was 2.92.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: The age distribution is 20.4% under the age of 18, 15.9% from 18 to 24, 38.1% from 25 to 44, 18.2% from 45 to 64, and 7.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.5 males.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: The median income for a household in the city was $51,376, and the median income for a family was $60,849. Males had a median income of $45,686 versus $34,015 for females. The per capita income for the city was $25,529. About 3.9% of families and 6.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.4% of those under age 18 and 4.4% of those age 66 or over.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Auburn Hills roughly follows the course of Interstate 75 and is home to a prosperous business community. In the early 1980s, Oakland University partnered with developers to create a technology and research park. The Oakland Technology Park was approved by the city in 1985, with Comerica, EDS, and Chrysler to build campuses there. The city's many tech and office buildings host 80,000 people during the workday.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Great Lakes Crossing Outlets, an enclosed super-regional outlet shopping mall, opened November 12, 1998.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: In 2002, the area at Auburn and Squirrel was revitalized as the "Village Center" with streetscape improvements. Pedestrian-friendly development is encouraged in this district now known simply as Downtown Auburn Hills. At the end of 2013, a number of large projects were completed Downtown, including a four-story graduate student apartment complex, a 233-space parking deck, an auxiliary classroom space for schools and colleges called the University Center and the Downtown Educational Nook (DEN), a refurbished historic log cabin acting as a student and community center.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Auburn Hills is home to BorgWarner, Guardian Industries, Autoliv, RGIS, Joyson Safety Systems, the Americas headquarters of GKN Driveline, the North American headquarters of Faurecia, Volkswagen/Audi North American Headquarters, and until its demolition, The Palace of Auburn Hills, the former home of the National Basketball Association's Detroit Pistons and the former home of Women's National Basketball Association's Detroit Shock.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: In 2017, Maserati announced it was moving its U.S. headquarters from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to the former Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: School districts serving sections of Auburn Hills include Avondale School District, Pontiac School District, and Rochester Community Schools.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: The Avondale School District operates two elementary schools in the city limits: R. Grant Graham Elementary School and Auburn Elementary School. Portions of Auburn Hills in ASD are zoned to these schools. All ASD residents are zoned to Avondale Middle School in Rochester Hills and Avondale High School in Auburn Hills. Other ASD facilities in Auburn Hills include the district administrative offices and Avondale Montessori. A Pontiac school district school, Will Rogers Elementary School, is located in northeastern Auburn Hills.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: The main campus of Oakland University sits within Auburn Hills. Oakland Community College, Baker College, and Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School are also situated in Auburn Hills.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: A skateboard, inline skate and BMX bike park open to all ages and skill levels. The use of the facility is always free and it remains open from April to November, 8 a.m. until dusk.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Popular hiking and walking attraction with numerous nature trails. A fishing pond and picnic area are also available for public use. The park offers open lawn areas and a picnic shelter with a fireplace inside. The park features a softball field, 9-hole disc golf course, tennis courts, two play structures, and swings.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: An expansive, walkway through the heart of Oakland County. The trail cuts through several different cities, including Rochester, Rochester Hills, Sylvan Lake, Auburn Hills, and Pontiac. The section of trail within Auburn Hills is covered in finely crushed stone, ideal for walking, jogging and biking.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Featuring a fireman-themed "tot-lot" for children ages 2–5, Dennis Dearing Jr. Memorial Park is a popular spot for families with children. The park also has swings, picnic tables and open space areas for picnic or play.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Hawk Woods offers endless opportunities for outdoor recreational activities. This unique preserve offers a brand new lodge, groomed nature trails, a heated restroom/shower facility open year-round, a covered picnic shelter that can be reserved in season, six overnight camping cabins, all complemented by 88 acres of beautiful woods, meadows, and marsh. Learn more about renting out the Hawk Woods Lodge HERE.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: A two-acre park which contains a play structure, sand volleyball courts, a paved play area and open space for activities.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Located adjacent to downtown Auburn Hills and along the Clinton River, Riverside Park is a popular spot during the warmer months. A canoe launch is open during the warm season.


title: Auburn Hills, Michigan

text: Located near downtown Auburn Hills, this park has picnic areas, both open and sheltered, standing barbecue grills and heated restrooms which remain open year-round. Visitors can navigate through the park on a paved pathway system, which includes a bridge over the Clinton River. The park also contains four basketball courts and play structures.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Boone Carlyle is a fictional character who was played by Ian Somerhalder on the ABC drama television series "Lost", which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the south Pacific. Boone is introduced in the pilot episode as the stepbrother of fellow crash survivor Shannon Rutherford. He tries to contribute as much as he can to the safety of the castaways and eventually becomes John Locke's protégé.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Also, unlike many other characters of the first season, who were rewritten based on their actors, Boone was largely the same through production. Somerhalder did not want to shoot a pilot; however, he jumped at the opportunity once he found out he would be working with co-creator/executive producer J. J. Abrams. The character was generally well received by critics and fans; "USA Today" described Boone as a "callow, privileged young man striving for maturity."


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Boone is born in October, 1981, the son of wealthy Sabrina Carlyle, the head of a wedding company. When Boone was ten years old, Sabrina marries Adam Rutherford, who has an eight-year-old daughter named Shannon. When Boone is twenty years old, he becomes the chief operating officer of his mother's business in New York City. Boone harbors a fondness for his stepsister, which develops into a romantic attraction. When Boone learns of Shannon’s financial difficulties after her father’s death he offers to give her money, but she does not accept. Boone "rescues" Shannon several times from abusive relationships by paying the boyfriends to leave her. One such rescue attempt leads Boone to Sydney, Australia in September 2004, where he learns the relationships are actually scams concocted by Shannon to get his money and attention. Boone is deeply hurt by the deception. Boone and Shannon have sex after her Australian boyfriend runs away with her money. The next day, they board Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 to return to the United States.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Boone unsuccessfully tries to perform CPR on an unconscious Rose Henderson, which he claims to have learned from when he was a lifeguard, but Jack Shephard convinces him to retrieve a pen, unnecessarily. Boone maintains a generally helpful attitude and remains protective of Shannon (although he criticizes her for her affectedness). His protective attitude combines with jealousy when she develops feelings for Sayid Jarrah, and Boone unsuccessfully attempts to discourage the relationship.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Boone is drawn to the hunting and survival skills of John Locke, a fellow castaway. He becomes Locke’s apprentice and begins to distance himself from the other survivors. Boone and Locke find a metal hatch while tracking the kidnapped Claire Littleton and Charlie Pace. The two excavate the hatch, keeping its existence a secret from the other survivors. Locke subjects Boone to a hallucinatory exercise on their twenty-fourth day on the island allowing Boone to resolve his feelings for Shannon, in which Boone sees Shannon after she is killed by the monster. Forty-one days after the crash, Boone and Locke discover a heroin runner's Beechcraft stuck high in a tree canopy. Boone climbs up into the aircraft and finds a working radio in the cockpit, which he uses to transmit a Mayday signal. He receives a response to his message by a man, later revealed to be Bernard Nadler of the tail-section survivors, but the aircraft unbalances and falls nose-first to the ground. Boone sustains severe injuries and, despite Jack's attempts to treat him, dies on November 2, 2004. Boone tries to pass a message to Shannon through Jack, but dies before he is able to finish the sentence. Somerhalder said the news of his character's death was "pretty devastating", which is notable for being the first death of a major character on the series.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Almost four weeks later, Locke experiences a self-induced hallucination, where a longer-haired Boone appears and pushes Locke around in a wheelchair in an imaginary Sydney International Airport, where the other survivors are present but acting in different roles. Boone tells Locke someone in the airport was in serious danger. Close to the end of the hallucination, Locke finds Eko's stick covered in blood and Boone appears bloody and injured. He tells Locke "They've got him. You don't have much time." In the Oceanic Six's cover story, Boone was one of the ones who survived the initial crash, but soon died of internal injuries.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: In the alternate timeline, Shannon does not go back with Boone. In "LA X", Boone goes back alone on Flight 815 and sits beside Locke, where he finds out about Locke supposedly going on a Walkabout in Australia. In a parallel with the island timeline, Boone tells Locke if they crashed, he would follow him. Once the plane lands, Boone shakes Locke's hand and exits the plane. Boone reappears in the final episode of "Lost". In "The End", we see Hurley and Sayid talking in a car on a dark street, and they witness a thug beating up a guy (Boone) outside of a bar. Shannon shouts "Leave my brother alone," and Sayid gets out of the car to intervene. His and Shannon's memories are restored the moment they touch. Boone, having conspired with Hurley to bring Shannon and Sayid together, wanders over to the car. He jokes with Hurley about how he had to take a beating and "thanks for taking your time." He also comments how difficult it was to get Shannon to return from Australia with him, but he and Hurley agree the effort was worth it for this moment to have her and Sayid's memories restored. Boone is one of the first people Jack greets in the church where everyone reunites to move on to the afterlife together.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: "USA Today" described Boone as "a callow young man who had been toughened by island challenges." "Variety" called him "hot-headed", while "Entertainment Weekly" wrote he was "even-tempered". Boone's quick decisions with good intentions are often rash. On his sixth day on the island, Joanna Miller drowns. As soon as he finds out she is drowning, he immediately tries to save her, although he does not succeed and almost becomes a casualty himself. While trying to take on a leadership role, Boone steals the camp's water; however, his plan backfires and the survivors turn on him. When Boone suspects Sawyer has Shannon's medicine, he attempts to steal it. Aside from Shannon, he was closest to John Locke, who acted as a father figure and mentor to the younger, inexperienced Boone and who, unlike others including Shannon, tried to help him do his part on the island. Boone similarly is one of the few to trust Locke's guidance and made Locke feel like the hero he had always wanted to be. Boone reflects aspects of Locke's personality, such as his desire to have a unique purpose and his willingness to believe in the unlikely.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Boone always offers to help his fellow survivors, joining the party trying to send a radio distress call on the second day, helping Sayid triangulate Danielle Rousseau's distress signal on the eighth day, searching for the abducted Claire Littleton on the sixteenth day and standing guard for the return of Ethan Rom on the twenty-eighth day. IGN wrote "he appeared to be both integral and counterproductive to their survival" and "Boone appeared to be a pure and honest guy who tried to help people on the island and attempted to carry his own weight among the seemingly-unscathed survivors of Oceanic Flight 815."


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Unlike many other characters of the first season, who were rewritten based on their actors, Boone was largely the same through production. He was originally going to be named Boone Anthony Markham V, going by the nickname, "Five." In the script for the pilot, the writers ran a search and replace to change Boone's name so when Jack counted to five, the script read, "One, two, three, four, Boone." Somerhalder did not want to shoot a pilot; however, he jumped at the opportunity once he found out he would be working with co-creator/executive producer J. J. Abrams. Somerhalder was paid between $20,000 and $40,000 an episode, initially received the third highest billing in the credits, before the producers decided to list the main cast alphabetically.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Boone has appeared in a total of twenty-five episodes, and his voice has been heard in a twenty-sixth episode. Boone has physically appeared in three episodes since the first season with the credit of "special guest star." He returned for the flashbacks of Shannon, Nikki Fernandez and Paulo and Locke's hallucination. In Nikki's third season flashback, the producers did not ask Somerhalder to cut his hair for two days of work and had him wear a wig, making his hair noticeably longer than it should have been.


title: Boone Carlyle

text: There is some confusion over the spelling of Boone's last name. While "Carlyle" appears on Boone's checkbook and grave, "Carlisle" appears on the subtitles for "Hearts and Minds."


title: Boone Carlyle

text: In the original outline of the eleventh episode, Locke was to be accompanied by two guest characters to search for Claire and discover the Hatch. In the final product, Boone accompanied Locke, a choice leading to Boone's death. While the executive producers have stated Somerhalder took the news of his character's death professionally, Somerhalder has said he found it "pretty devastating." Boone's death is notable as the first death of a major character on the series. According to executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, Boone's death made sense from a story perspective to fuel the rivalry between Jack and Locke and lead to the events in the season finale. Following Somerhalder's departure from the show, ABC signed him to another one-year contract. Somerhalder stated being a part of "Lost" was "the greatest experience" of "the greatest year of his life."


title: Boone Carlyle

text: BuddyTV called Boone a fan "favorite." After three episodes had aired, an article in "USA Today" called Somerhalder "camera-friendly." A poll was run by ComingSoon.net in spring 2005 on the favorite of the fourteen main "Lost" characters, in which Boone placed seventh with 4.3% of over 2000 votes. After his death, a "TV Guide" critic wrote she misses Boone's "very pretty eyes." IGN ranked Boone as the tenth best character of the first three seasons of "Lost".


title: Boone Carlyle

text: Somerhalder co-won the 2005 Screen Actors Guild Award for "Best Ensemble – Drama Series. He was also nominated in the category of "TV: Choice Breakout Performance – Male" in the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, but lost to "Desperate Housewives"<nowiki>'</nowiki> Jesse Metcalfe, who plays John Rowland. While starring on "Lost", Somerhalder was voted one of "20 Teens Who Will Change the World" by "Teen People", despite being 26 years old at the time. "Teen People" also called him "the next Johnny Depp." He placed ninth on "TV Guide"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "Top Ten Hunks" list.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Early Netherlandish painting, traditionally known as the Flemish Primitives, refers to the work of artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period. It flourished especially in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. The period begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, although many scholars extend it to the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568–Max J. Friedländer's acclaimed surveys run through Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Early Netherlandish painting coincides with the Early and High Italian Renaissance, but the early period (until about 1500) is seen as an independent artistic evolution, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in Italy. Beginning in the 1490s, as increasing numbers of Netherlandish and other Northern painters traveled to Italy, Renaissance ideals and painting styles were incorporated into northern painting. As a result, Early Netherlandish painters are often categorised as belonging to both the Northern Renaissance and the Late or International Gothic.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The major Netherlandish painters include Campin, van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Hieronymus Bosch. These artists made significant advances in natural representation and illusionism, and their work typically features complex iconography. Their subjects are usually religious scenes or small portraits, with narrative painting or mythological subjects being relatively rare. Landscape is often richly described but relegated as a background detail before the early 16th century. The painted works are generally oil on panel, either as single works or more complex portable or fixed altarpieces in the form of diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs. The period is also noted for its sculpture, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass and carved retables.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The first generations of artists were active during the height of Burgundian influence in Europe, when the Low Countries became the political and economic centre of Northern Europe, noted for its crafts and luxury goods. Assisted by the workshop system, panels and a variety of crafts were sold to foreign princes or merchants through private engagement or market stalls. A majority of the works were destroyed during waves of iconoclasm in the 16th and 17th centuries; today only a few thousand examples survive.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Early northern art in general was not well regarded from the early 17th to the mid-19th century, and the painters and their works were not well documented until the mid-19th century. Art historians spent almost another century determining attributions, studying iconography, and establishing bare outlines of even the major artists' lives; attribution of some of the most significant works is still debated. Scholarship of Early Netherlandish painting was one of the main activities of 19th- and 20th-century art history, and a major focus of two of the most important art historians of the 20th century: Max J. Friedländer ("From Van Eyck to Breugel" and "Early Netherlandish Painting") and Erwin Panofsky ("Early Netherlandish Painting").


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The term "Early Netherlandish art" applies broadly to painters active during the 15th and 16th centuries in the northern European areas controlled by the Dukes of Burgundy and later the Habsburg dynasty. These artists became an early driving force behind the Northern Renaissance and the move away from the Gothic style. In this political and art-historical context, the north follows the Burgundian lands which straddled areas that encompass parts of modern France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The Netherlandish artists have been known by a variety of terms. "Late Gothic" is an early designation which emphasises continuity with the art of the Middle Ages. In the early 20th century, the artists were variously referred to in English as the "Ghent-Bruges school" or the "Old Netherlandish school". "Flemish Primitives" is a traditional art-historical term borrowed from the French "primitifs flamands" that became popular after the famous exhibition in Bruges in 1902 and remains in use today, especially in Dutch and German. In this context, "primitive" does not refer to a perceived lack of sophistication, but rather identifies the artists as originators of a new tradition in painting. Erwin Panofsky preferred the term "ars nova" ("new art"), which linked the movement with innovative composers of music such as Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois, who were favoured by the Burgundian court over artists attached to the lavish French court. When the Burgundian dukes established centres of power in the Netherlands, they brought with them a more cosmopolitan outlook. According to Otto Pächt a simultaneous shift in art began sometime between 1406 and 1420 when a "revolution took place in painting"; a "new beauty" in art emerged, one that depicted the visible rather than the metaphysical world.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: In the 19th century, the Early Netherlandish artists were classified by nationality, with Jan van Eyck identified as German and van der Weyden (born Roger de la Pasture) as French. Scholars were at times preoccupied as to whether the school's genesis was in France or Germany. These arguments and distinctions dissipated after World War I, and following the leads of Friedländer, Panofsky, and Pächt, English-language scholars now almost universally describe the period as "Early Netherlandish painting", although many art historians view the Flemish term as more correct.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: In the 14th century, as Gothic art gave way to the International Gothic era, a number of schools developed in northern Europe. Early Netherlandish art originated in French courtly art, and is especially tied to the tradition and conventions of illuminated manuscripts. Modern art historians see the era as beginning with 14th-century manuscript illuminators. They were followed by panel painters such as Melchior Broederlam and Robert Campin, the latter generally considered the first Early Netherlandish master, under whom van der Weyden served his apprenticeship. Illumination reached a peak in the region in the decades after 1400, mainly due to the patronage of Burgundian and House of Valois-Anjou dukes such as Philip the Bold, Louis I of Anjou and Jean, Duke of Berry. This patronage continued in the low countries with the Burgundian dukes, Philip the Good and his son Charles the Bold. The demand for illuminated manuscripts declined towards the end of the century, perhaps because of the costly production process in comparison to panel painting. Yet illumination remained popular at the luxury end of the market, and prints, both engravings and woodcuts, found a new mass market, especially those by artists such as Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dürer.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Following van Eyck's innovations, the first generation of Netherlandish painters emphasised light and shadow, elements usually absent from 14th-century illuminated manuscripts. Biblical scenes were depicted with more naturalism, which made their content more accessible to viewers, while individual portraits became more evocative and alive. Johan Huizinga said that art of the era was meant to be fully integrated with daily routine, to "fill with beauty" the devotional life in a world closely tied to the liturgy and sacraments. After about 1500 a number of factors turned against the pervasive Northern style, not least the rise of Italian art, whose commercial appeal began to rival Netherlandish art by 1510, and overtook it some ten years later. Two events symbolically and historically reflect this shift: the transporting of a marble "Madonna and Child" by Michelangelo to Bruges in 1506, and the arrival of Raphael's tapestry cartoons to Brussels in 1517, which were widely seen while in the city. Although the influence of Italian art was soon widespread across the north, it in turn had drawn on the 15th-century northern painters, with Michelangelo's "Madonna" based on a type developed by Hans Memling.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Netherlandish painting ends in the narrowest sense with the death of Gerard David in 1523. A number of mid- and late-16th-century artists maintained many of the conventions, and they are frequently but not always associated with the school. The style of these painters is often dramatically at odds with that of the first generation of artists. In the early 16th century, artists began to explore illusionistic depictions of three dimensions. The painting of the early 16th century can be seen as leading directly from the artistic innovations and iconography of the previous century, with some painters, following the traditional and established formats and symbolism of the previous century, continuing to produce copies of previously painted works. Others came under the influence of Renaissance humanism, turning towards secular narrative cycles, as biblical imagery was blended with mythological themes. A full break from the mid-15th-century style and subject matter was not seen until the development of Northern Mannerism around 1590. There was considerable overlap, and the early- to mid-16th-century innovations can be tied to the Mannerist style, including naturalistic secular portraiture, the depiction of ordinary (as opposed to courtly) life, and the development of elaborate landscapes and cityscapes that were more than background views.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The origins of the Early Netherlandish school lie in the miniature paintings of the late Gothic period. This was first seen in manuscript illumination, which after 1380 conveyed new levels of realism, perspective and skill in rendering colour, peaking with the Limbourg brothers and the Netherlandish artist known as Hand G, to whom the most significant leaves of the Turin-Milan Hours are usually attributed. Although his identity has not been definitively established, Hand G, who contributed c. 1420, is thought to have been either Jan van Eyck or his brother Hubert. According to Georges Hulin de Loo, Hand G's contributions to the Turin-Milan Hours "constitute the most marvelous group of paintings that have ever decorated any book, and, for their period, the most astounding work known to the history of art".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Jan van Eyck's use of oil as a medium was a significant development, allowing artists far greater manipulation of paint. The 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari claimed van Eyck invented the use of oil paint; a claim that, while exaggerated, indicates the extent to which van Eyck helped disseminate the technique. Van Eyck employed a new level of virtuosity, mainly from taking advantage of the fact that oil dries so slowly; this gave him more time and more scope for blending and mixing layers of different pigments, and his technique was quickly adopted and refined by both Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden. These three artists are considered the first rank and most influential of the early generation of Early Netherlandish painters. Their influence was felt across northern Europe, from Bohemia and Poland in the east to Austria and Swabia in the south.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: A number of artists traditionally associated with the movement had origins that were neither Dutch nor Flemish in the modern sense. Van der Weyden was born Roger de la Pasture in Tournai. The German Hans Memling and the Estonian Michael Sittow both worked in the Netherlands in a fully Netherlandish style. Simon Marmion is often regarded as an Early Netherlandish painter because he came from Amiens, an area intermittently ruled by the Burgundian court between 1435 and 1471. The Burgundian duchy was at its peak influence, and the innovations made by the Netherlandish painters were soon recognised across the continent. By the time of van Eyck's death, his paintings were sought by wealthy patrons across Europe. Copies of his works were widely circulated, a fact that greatly contributed to the spread of the Netherlandish style to central and southern Europe. Central European art was then under the dual influence of innovations from Italy and from the north. Often the exchange of ideas between the Low Countries and Italy led to patronage from nobility such as Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who commissioned manuscripts from both traditions.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The first generation were literate, well educated and mostly from middle-class backgrounds. Van Eyck and van der Weyden were both highly placed in the Burgundian court, with van Eyck in particular assuming roles for which an ability to read Latin was necessary; inscriptions found on his panels indicate that he had a good knowledge of both Latin and Greek. A number of artists were financially successful and much sought-after in the Low Countries and by patrons across Europe. Many artists, including David and Bouts, could afford to donate large works to the churches, monasteries and convents of their choosing. Van Eyck was a valet de chambre at the Burgundian court and had easy access to Philip the Good. Van der Weyden was a prudent investor in stocks and property; Bouts was commercially minded and married the heiress Catherine "Mettengelde" ("with the money"). Vrancke van der Stockt invested in land.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The Early Netherlandish masters' influence reached artists such as Stefan Lochner and the painter known as the Master of the Life of the Virgin, both of whom, working in mid-15th-century Cologne, drew inspiration from imported works by van der Weyden and Bouts. New and distinctive painterly cultures sprang up; Ulm, Nuremberg, Vienna and Munich were the most important artistic centres in the Holy Roman Empire at the start of the 16th century. There was a rise in demand for printmaking (using woodcuts or copperplate engraving) and other innovations borrowed from France and southern Italy. Some 16th-century painters borrowed heavily from the previous century's techniques and styles. Even progressive artists such as Jan Gossaert made copies, such as his reworking of van Eyck's "Madonna in the Church". Gerard David linked the styles of Bruges and Antwerp, often travelling between the cities. He moved to Antwerp in 1505, when Quentin Matsys was the head of the local painters' guild, and the two became friends.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: By the 16th century the iconographic innovations and painterly techniques developed by van Eyck had become standard throughout northern Europe. Albrecht Dürer emulated van Eyck's precision. Painters enjoyed a new level of respect and status; patrons no longer simply commissioned works but courted the artists, sponsoring their travel and exposing them to new and wide-ranging influences. Hieronymus Bosch, active in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, remains one of the most important and popular of the Netherlandish painters. He was anomalous in that he largely forwent realistic depictions of nature, human existence and perspective, while his work is almost entirely free of Italian influences. His better-known works are instead characterised by fantastical elements that tend towards the hallucinatory, drawing to some extent from the vision of hell in van Eyck's "Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych". Bosch followed his own muse, tending instead towards moralism and pessimism. His paintings, especially the triptychs, are among the most significant and accomplished of the late Netherlandish period


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The Reformation brought changes in outlook and artistic expression as secular and landscape imagery overtook biblical scenes. Sacred imagery was shown in a didactic and moralistic manner, with religious figures becoming marginalized and relegated to the background. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of the few who followed Bosch's style, is an important bridge between the Early Netherlandish artists and their successors. His work retains many 15th-century conventions, but his perspective and subjects are distinctly modern. Sweeping landscapes came to the fore in paintings that were provisionally religious or mythological, and his genre scenes were complex, with overtones of religious skepticism and even hints of nationalism.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Campin, van Eyck and van der Weyden established naturalism as the dominant style in 15th-century northern European painting. These artists sought to show the world as it actually was, and to depict people in a way that made them look more human, with a greater complexity of emotions than had been previously seen. This first generation of Early Netherlandish artists were interested in the accurate reproduction of objects (according to Panofsky they painted "gold that looked like gold"), paying close attention to natural phenomena such as light, shadow and reflection. They moved beyond the flat perspective and outlined figuration of earlier painting in favour of three-dimensional pictorial spaces. The position of viewers and how they might relate to the scene became important for the first time; in the "Arnolfini Portrait", van Eyck arranges the scene as if the viewer has just entered the room containing the two figures. Advancements in technique allowed far richer, more luminous and closely detailed representations of people, landscapes, interiors and objects.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Although, the use of oil as a binding agent can be traced to the 12th century, innovations in its handling and manipulation define the era. Egg tempera was the dominant medium until the 1430s, and while it produces both bright and light colours, it dries quickly and is a difficult medium in which to achieve naturalistic textures or deep shadows. Oil allows smooth, translucent surfaces and can be applied in a range of thicknesses, from fine lines to thick broad strokes. It dries slowly and is easily manipulated while still wet. These characteristics allowed more time to add subtle detail and enable wet-on-wet techniques. Smooth transitions of colour are possible because portions of the intermediary layers of paint can be wiped or removed as the paint dries. Oil enables differentiation among degrees of reflective light, from shadow to bright beams, and minute depictions of light effects through the use of transparent glazes. This new freedom in controlling light effects gave rise to more precise and realistic depictions of surface textures; van Eyck and van der Weyden typically show light falling on surfaces such as jewellery, wooden floors, textiles and household objects.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The paintings were most often made on wood, but sometimes on the less expensive canvas. The wood was usually oak, often imported from the Baltic region, with the preference for radially cut boards which are less likely to warp. Typically the sap was removed and the board well-seasoned before use. Wood supports allow for dendrochronological dating, and the particular use of Baltic oak gives clues as to the artist's location. The panels generally show very high degrees of craftsmanship. Lorne Campbell notes that most are "beautifully made and finished objects. It can be extremely difficult to find the joins". Many paintings' frames were altered, repainted or gilded in the 18th and early 19th centuries when it was common practice to break apart hinged Netherlandish pieces so they could be sold as genre pieces. Many surviving panels are painted on both sides or with the reverse bearing family emblems, crests or ancillary outline sketches. In the case of single panels, the markings on the reverse are often wholly unrelated to the obverse and may be later additions, or as Campbell speculates, "done for the artist's amusement". Painting each side of a panel was practical since it prevented the wood from warping. Usually the frames of hinged works were constructed before the individual panels were worked on.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Glue binder was often used as an inexpensive alternative to oil. Many works using this medium were produced but few survive today because of the delicateness of the linen cloth and the solubility of the hide glue from which the binder was derived. Well known and relatively well preserved – though substantially damaged – examples include Matsys' "Virgin and Child with Saints Barbara and Catherine" (c. 1415–25) and Bouts' "Entombment" (c. 1440–55). The paint was generally applied with brushes or sometimes with thin sticks or brush handles. The artists often softened the contours of shadows with their fingers, at times to blot or reduce the glaze.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The most usual way in the 15th century for a patron to commission a piece was to visit a master's workshop. Only a certain number of masters could operate within any city's bounds; they were regulated by artisan guilds to whom they had to be affiliated to be allowed to operate and receive commissions. Guilds protected and regulated painting, overseeing production, export trade and raw material supply; and they maintained discrete sets of rules for panel painters, cloth painters and book illuminators. For example, the rules set higher citizenship requirements for miniaturists and prohibited them from using oils. Overall, panel painters enjoyed the highest level of protection, with cloth painters ranking below.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Membership of a guild was highly restricted and access was difficult for newcomers. A master was expected to serve an apprenticeship in his region, and show proof of citizenship, which could be obtained through birth in the city or by purchase. Apprenticeship lasted four to five years, ending with the production of a "masterpiece" that proved his ability as a craftsman, and the payment of a substantial entrance fee. The system was protectionist at a local level through the nuances of the fee system. Although it sought to ensure a high quality of membership, it was a self-governing body that tended to favour wealthy applicants. Guild connections sometimes appear in paintings, most famously in van der Weyden's "Descent from the Cross", in which Christ's body is given the t-shape of a crossbow to reflect its commission for a chapel for the Leuven guild of archers.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Workshops typically consisted of a family home for the master and lodging for apprentices. The masters usually built up inventories of pre-painted panels as well as patterns or outline designs for ready sale. With the former, the master was responsible for the overall design of the painting, and typically painted the focal portions, such as the faces, hands and the embroidered parts of the figure's clothing. The more prosaic elements would be left to assistants; in many works it is possible to discern abrupt shifts in style, with the relatively weak Deesis passage in van Eyck's "Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych" being a better-known example. Often a master's workshop was occupied with both the reproduction of copies of proven commercially successful works, and the design of new compositions arising from commissions. In this case, the master would usually produce the underdrawing or overall composition to be painted by assistants. As a result, many surviving works that evidence first-rank compositions but uninspired execution are attributed to workshop members or followers.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: By the 15th century the reach and influence of the Burgundian princes meant that the Low Countries' merchant and banker classes were in the ascendancy. The early to mid-century saw great rises in international trade and domestic wealth, leading to an enormous increase in the demand for art. Artists from the area attracted patronage from the Baltic coast, the north German and Polish regions, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and the powerful families of England and Scotland. At first, masters had acted as their own dealers, attending fairs where they could also buy frames, panels and pigments. The mid-century saw the development of art dealership as a profession; the activity became purely commercially driven, dominated by the mercantile class.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Smaller works were not usually produced on commission. More often the masters anticipated the formats and images that would be most sought after and their designs were then developed by workshop members. Ready made paintings were sold at regularly held fairs, or the buyers could visit workshops, which tended to be clustered in certain areas of the major cities. The masters were allowed to display in their front windows. This was the typical mode for the thousands of panels produced for the middle class – city officials, clergy, guild members, doctors and merchants.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Less expensive cloth paintings ("tüchlein") were more common in middle-class households, and records show a strong interest in domestically owned religious panel paintings. Members of the merchant class typically commissioned smaller devotional panels, containing specified subject matter. Alterations varied from having individualised panels added to a prefabricated pattern, to the inclusion of a donor portrait. The addition of coats-of-arms were often the only change – an addition seen in van der Weyden's "Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin", which exists in several variations.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Many of the Burgundian dukes could afford to be extravagant in their taste. Philip the Good followed the example set earlier in France by his great-uncles including Jean, Duke of Berry by becoming a strong patron of the arts and commissioning a large number of artworks. The Burgundian court was seen as the arbiter of taste and their appreciation in turn drove demand for highly luxurious and expensive illuminated manuscripts, gold-edged tapestries and jewel-bordered cups. Their appetite for finery trickled down through their court and nobles to the people who for the most part commissioned local artists in Bruges and Ghent in the 1440s and 1450s. While Netherlandish panel paintings did not have intrinsic value as did for example objects in precious metals, they were perceived as precious objects and in the first rank of European art. A 1425 document written by Philip the Good explains that he hired a painter for the "excellent work that he does in his craft". Jan van Eyck painted the "Annunciation" while in Philip's employ, and Rogier van der Weyden became the duke's portrait painter in the 1440s.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Burgundian rule created a large class of courtiers and functionaries. Some gained enormous power and commissioned paintings to display their wealth and influence. Civic leaders also commissioned works from major artists, such as Bouts' "", van der Weyden's "The Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald" and David's "Justice of Cambyses". Civic commissions were less common and were not as lucrative, but they brought notice to and increased a painter's reputation, as with Memling, whose "St John Altarpiece" for Bruges' Sint-Janshospitaal brought him additional civic commissions.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Wealthy foreign patronage and the development of international trade afforded the established masters the chance to build up workshops with assistants. Although first-rank painters such as Petrus Christus and Hans Memling found patrons among the local nobility, they catered specifically to the large foreign population in Bruges. Painters not only exported goods but also themselves; foreign princes and nobility, striving to emulate the opulence of the Burgundian court, hired painters away from Bruges.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The paintings of the first generation of Netherlandish artists are often characterised by the use of symbolism and biblical references. Van Eyck pioneered, and his innovations were taken up and developed by van der Weyden, Memling and Christus. Each employed rich and complex iconographical elements to create a heightened sense of contemporary beliefs and spiritual ideals. Morally the works express a fearful outlook, combined with a respect for restraint and stoicism. The paintings above all emphasise the spiritual over the earthly. Because the cult of Mary was at an apex at the time, iconographic elements related to the "Life of Mary" vastly predominate.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Craig Harbison describes the blending of realism and symbolism as perhaps "the most important aspect of early Flemish art". The first generation of Netherlandish painters were preoccupied with making religious symbols more realistic. Van Eyck incorporated a wide variety of iconographic elements, often conveying what he saw as a co-existence of the spiritual and material worlds. The iconography was embedded in the work unobtrusively; typically the references comprised small but key background details. The embedded symbols were meant to meld into the scenes and were "a deliberate strategy to create an experience of spiritual revelation". Van Eyck's religious paintings in particular "always present the spectator with a transfigured view of visible reality". To him the day-to-day is harmoniously steeped in symbolism, such that, according to Harbison, "descriptive data were rearranged ... so that they illustrated not earthly existence but what he considered supernatural truth." This blend of the earthly and heavenly evidences van Eyck's belief that the "essential truth of Christian doctrine" can be found in "the marriage of secular and sacred worlds, of reality and symbol". He depicts overly large Madonnas, whose unrealistic size shows the separation between the heavenly from earthly, but placed them in everyday settings such as churches, domestic chambers or seated with court officials.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Yet the earthly churches are heavily decorated with heavenly symbols. A heavenly throne is clearly represented in some domestic chambers (for example in the "Lucca Madonna"). More difficult to discern are the settings for paintings such as "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin", where the location is a fusion of the earthly and celestial. Van Eyck's iconography is often so densely and intricately layered that a work has to be viewed multiple times before even the most obvious meaning of an element is apparent. The symbols were often subtly woven into the paintings so that they only became apparent after close and repeated viewing, while much of the iconography reflects the idea that, according to John Ward, there is a "promised passage from sin and death to salvation and rebirth".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Other artists employed symbolism in a more prosaic manner, despite van Eyck's great influence on both his contemporaries and later artists. Campin showed a clear separation between spiritual and earthly realms; unlike van Eyck, he did not employ a programme of concealed symbolism. Campin's symbols do not alter the sense of the real; in his paintings a domestic scene is no more complicated than a one showing religious iconography, but one the viewer would recognise and understand. Van der Weyden's symbolism was far more nuanced than Campin's but not as dense as van Eyck's. According to Harbison, van der Weyden incorporated his symbols so carefully, and in such an exquisite manner, that "Neither the mystical union that results in his work, nor his reality itself for that matter, seems capable of being rationally analyzed, explained or reconstructed." His treatment of architectural details, niches, colour and space is presented in such an inexplicable manner that "the particular objects or people we see before us have suddenly, jarringly, become symbols with religious truth".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Paintings and other precious objects served an important aid in the religious life of those who could afford them. Prayer and meditative contemplation were means to attain salvation, while the very wealthy could also build churches (or extend existing ones), or commission artworks or other devotional pieces as a means to guarantee salvation in the afterlife. Vast numbers of Virgin and Child paintings were produced, and original designs were widely copied and exported. Many of the paintings were based on Byzantine prototypes of the 12th and 13th centuries, of which the "Cambrai Madonna" is probably the best known. In this way the traditions of the earlier centuries were absorbed and re-developed as a distinctly rich and complex iconographical tradition.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Marian devotion grew from the 13th century, mostly forming around the concepts of the Immaculate Conception and her Assumption into heaven. In a culture that venerated the possession of relics as a means to bring the earthly closer to the divine, Mary left no bodily relics, thus assuming a special position between heaven and humanity. By the early 15th century, Mary had grown in importance within the Christian doctrine to the extent that she was commonly seen as the most accessible intercessor with God. It was thought that the length each person would need to suffer in limbo was proportional to their display of devotion while on earth. The veneration of Mary reached a peak in the early 15th century, an era that saw an unending demand for works depicting her likeness. From the mid-15th century, Netherlandish portrayals of the life of Christ tended to be centred on the iconography of the Man of Sorrows.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Those who could afford to commissioned donor portraits. Such a commission was usually executed as part of a triptych, or later as a more affordable diptych. Van der Weyden popularised the existing northern tradition of half-length Marian portraits. These echoed the "miracle-working" Byzantine icons then popular in Italy. The format became extremely popular across the north, and his innovations are an important contributing factor to the emergence of the Marian diptych.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Although the Netherlandish artists are primarily known for their panel paintings, their output includes a variety of formats, including illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, tapestries, carved retables, stained glass, brass objects and carved tombs. According to art historian Susie Nash, by the early 16th century, the region led the field in almost every aspect of portable visual culture, "with specialist expertise and techniques of production at such a high level that no one else could compete with them". The Burgundian court favoured tapestry and metalwork, which are well recorded in surviving documentation, while demand for panel paintings is less evident – they may have been less suited to itinerant courts. Wall hangings and books functioned as political propaganda and as a means to showcase wealth and power, whereas portraits were less favoured. According to Maryan Ainsworth, those that were commissioned functioned to highlight lines of succession, such as van der Weyden's of Charles the Bold; or for betrothals as in the case of van Eyck's lost "Portrait of Isabella of Portugal".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Religious paintings were commissioned for royal and ducal palaces, for churches, hospitals, and convents, and for wealthy clerics and private donors. The richer cities and towns commissioned works for their civic buildings. Artists often worked in more than one medium; van Eyck and Petrus Christus are both thought to have contributed to manuscripts. Van der Weyden designed tapestries, though few survive. The Netherlandish painters were responsible for many innovations, including the advancement of the diptych format, the conventions of donor portraits, new conventions for Marian portraits, and, through works such as van Eyck's "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin" and van der Weyden's "Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin" in the 1430s, laying the foundation for the development of landscape painting as a separate genre.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Before the mid-15th century, illuminated books were considered a higher form of art than panel painting, and their ornate and luxurious qualities better reflected the wealth, status and taste of their owners. Manuscripts were ideally suited as diplomatic gifts or offerings to commemorate dynastic marriages or other major courtly occasions. From the 12th century, specialist monastery-based workshops (in French "libraires") produced books of hours (collections of prayers to be said at canonical hours), psalters, prayer books and histories, as well as romance and poetry books. At the start of the 15th century, Gothic manuscripts from Paris dominated the northern European market. Their popularity was in part due to the production of more affordable, single leaf miniatures which could be inserted into unillustrated books of hours. These were at times offered in a serial manner designed to encourage patrons to "include as many pictures as they could afford", which clearly presented them as an item of fashion but also as a form of indulgence. The single leaves had other uses rather than inserts; they could be attached to walls as aids to private meditation and prayer, as seen in Christus' 1450–60 panel "Portrait of a Young Man", now in the National Gallery, which shows a small leaf with text to the "Vera icon" illustrated with the head of Christ. The French artists were overtaken in importance from the mid-15th century by masters in Ghent, Bruges and Utrecht. English production, once of the highest quality, had greatly declined and relatively few Italian manuscripts went north of the Alps. The French masters did not give up their position easily however, and even in 1463 were urging their guilds to impose sanctions on the Netherlandish artists.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The Limbourg brothers' ornate "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry" perhaps marks both the beginning and a highpoint of Netherlandish illumination. Later the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy explored the same mix of illusionism and realism. The Limbourgs' career ended just as van Eyck's began – by 1416 all the brothers (none of whom had reached 30) and their patron Jean, Duke of Berry were dead, most likely from plague. Van Eyck is thought to have contributed several of the more acclaimed miniatures of the Turin-Milan Hours as the anonymous artist known as Hand G. A number of illustrations from the period show a strong stylistic resemblance to Gerard David, though it is unclear whether they are from his hands or those of followers.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: A number of factors led to the popularity of Netherlandish illuminators. Primary was the tradition and expertise that developed in the region in the centuries following the monastic reform of the 14th century, building on the growth in number and prominence of monasteries, abbeys and churches from the 12th century that had already produced significant numbers of liturgical texts. There was a strong political aspect; the form had many influential patrons such as Jean, Duke of Berry and Philip the Good, the latter of whom collected more than a thousand illuminated books before his death. According to Thomas Kren, Philip's "library was an expression of the man as a Christian prince, and an embodiment of the state – his politics and authority, his learning and piety". Because of his patronage the manuscript industry in the Lowlands grew so that it dominated Europe for several generations. The Burgundian book-collecting tradition passed to Philip's son and his wife, Charles the Bold and Margaret of York; his granddaughter Mary of Burgundy and her husband Maximilian I; and to his son-in-law, Edward IV, who was an avid collector of Flemish manuscripts. The libraries left by Philip and Edward IV formed the nucleus from which sprang the Royal Library of Belgium and the English Royal Library.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Netherlandish illuminators had an important export market, designing many works specifically for the English market. Following a decline in domestic patronage after Charles the Bold died in 1477, the export market became more important. Illuminators responded to differences in taste by producing more lavish and extravagantly decorated works tailored for foreign elites, including Edward IV of England, James IV of Scotland and Eleanor of Viseu.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: There was considerable overlap between panel painting and illumination; van Eyck, van der Weyden, Christus and other painters designed manuscript miniatures. In addition, miniaturists would borrow motifs and ideas from panel paintings; Campin's work was often used as a source in this way, for example in the "Hours of Raoul d'Ailly". Commissions were often shared between several masters, with junior painters or specialists assisting, especially with details such as the border decorations, these last often done by women. The masters rarely signed their work, making attribution difficult; the identities of some of the more significant illuminators are lost.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Netherlandish artists found increasingly inventive ways to highlight and differentiate their work from manuscripts from surrounding countries; such techniques included designing elaborate page borders and devising ways to relate scale and space. They explored the interplay between the three essential components of a manuscript: border, miniature and text. An example is the Nassau book of hours (c. 1467–80) by the Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy, in which the borders are decorated with large illusionistic flowers and insects. These elements achieved their effect by being broadly painted, as if scattered across the gilded surface of the miniatures. This technique was continued by, among others, the Flemish Master of James IV of Scotland (possibly Gerard Horenbout), known for his innovative page layout. Using various illusionistic elements, he often blurred the line between the miniature and its border, frequently using both in his efforts to advance the narrative of his scenes.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: During the early 19th century, the collection of 15th- and 16th-century Netherlandish cut-out, as miniatures or parts for albums, became fashionable amongst connoisseurs such as William Young Ottley, leading to the destruction of many manuscripts. Originals were highly sought after, a revival that helped the rediscovery of Netherlandish art in the later part of the century.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: During the mid-15th century, tapestry was one of the most expensive and prized artistic products in Europe. Commercial production proliferated across the Netherlands and northern France from the early 15th century, especially in the cities of Arras, Bruges and Tournai. The perceived technical ability of these artisans was such that, in 1517, Pope Leo X sent Raphael's cartoons to Brussels to be woven into hangings. Such woven wall hangings played a central political role as diplomatic gifts, especially in their larger format; Philip the Good gifted several to participants at the Congress of Arras in 1435, where the halls were draped from top to bottom and all around ("tout autour") with tapestries showing scenes of the "Battle and Overthrow of People of Liege". At Charles the Bold and Margaret of York's wedding the room "was hung above with draperies of wool, blue and white, and on the sides was tapestried with a rich tapestry woven with the history of Jason and the Golden Fleece". Rooms typically were hung from ceiling to floor with tapestries and some rooms named for a set of tapestries, such as a chamber Philip the Bold named for a set of white tapestries with scenes from "The Romance of the Rose". For about two centuries during the Burgundian period, master weavers produced "innumerable series of hangings heavy with gold and silver thread, the like of which the world had never seen".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The practical use of textiles results from their portability; tapestries provided easily assembled interior decorations suited to religious or civic ceremonies. Their value is reflected in their positioning in contemporary inventories, in which they are typically found at the top of the record, then ranked in accordance with their material or colouring. White and gold were considered of the highest quality. Charles V of France had 57 tapestries, of which 16 were white. Jean de Berry owned 19, while Mary of Burgundy, Isabella of Valois, Isabeau of Bavaria and Philip the Good all held substantial collections.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Tapestry production began with design. The designs, or cartoons were typically executed on paper or parchment, put together by qualified painters, then sent to weavers, often across a great distance. Because cartoons could be re-used, craftsmen often worked on source material that was decades old. As both paper and parchment are highly perishable, few of the original cartoons survive. Once a design was agreed upon its production might be farmed out among many weavers. Looms were active in all the major Flemish cities, in most of the towns and in many of the villages.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Looms were not controlled by the guilds. Dependent on a migrant workforce, their commercial activity was driven by entrepreneurs, who were usually painters. The entrepreneur would locate and commission patrons, hold a stock of cartoons and provide raw materials such as wool, silk, and sometimes gold and silver – which often had to be imported. Entrepreneurs were in direct contact with the patron, and often went through the nuances of the design at both the cartoon and final stages. This examination was often a difficult business and necessitated delicate management; in 1400 Isabeau of Bavaria rejected a completed set by Colart de Laon having earlier approved the designs, to de Laon's – and presumably his commissioner's – considerable embarrassment.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Because tapestries were designed largely by painters, their formal conventions are closely aligned with the conventions of panel painting. This is especially true with the later generations of 16th-century painters who produced panoramas of heaven and hell. Harbison describes how the intricate, dense and overlaid detail of Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" resembles, "in its precise symbolism ... a medieval tapestry".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Northern triptychs and polyptychs were popular across Europe from the late 14th century, with the peak of demand lasting until the early 16th century. During the 15th century, they were the most widely produced format of northern panel painting. Preoccupied with religious subject matter, they come in two broad types: smaller, portable private devotional works, or larger altarpieces for liturgical settings. The earliest northern examples are compound works incorporating engraving and painting, usually with two painted wings that could be folded over a carved central corpus.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Polyptychs were produced by the more accomplished masters. They provide greater scope for variation, and a greater number of possible combinations of interior and exterior panels that could be viewed at one time. That hinged works could be opened and closed served a practical purpose; on religious holidays the more prosaic and everyday outer panels were replaced by the lush interior panels. The "Ghent Altarpiece", completed in 1432, had different configurations for weekdays, Sundays and church holidays.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The first generation of Netherlandish masters borrowed many customs from 13th- and 14th-century Italian altarpieces. The conventions for Italian triptychs before 1400 were quite rigid. In central panels the mid-ground was populated by members of the Holy Family; early works, especially from the Sienese or Florentine traditions, were overwhelmingly characterised by images of the enthroned Virgin set against a gilded background. The wings usually contain a variety of angels, donors and saints, but there is never direct eye contact, and only rarely a narrative connection, with the central panel's figures.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Netherlandish painters adapted many of these conventions, but subverted them almost from the start. Van der Weyden was especially innovative, as apparent in his 1442–1445 "Miraflores Altarpiece" and c. 1452 "Braque Triptych". In these paintings members of the Holy Family appear on the wings instead of just the central panels, while the latter is notable for the continuous landscape connecting the three inner panels. From the 1490s Hieronymus Bosch painted at least 16 triptychs, the best of which subverted existing conventions. Bosch's work continued the move towards secularism and emphasised landscape. Bosch also unified the scenes of the inner panels.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Triptychs were commissioned by German patrons from the 1380s, with large-scale export beginning around 1400. Few of these very early examples survive, but the demand for Netherlandish altarpieces throughout Europe is evident from the many surviving examples still extant in churches across the continent. Till-Holger Borchert describes how they bestowed a "prestige which, in the first half of the 15th century, only the workshops of the Burgundian Netherlands were capable of achieving". By the 1390s, Netherlandish altarpieces were produced mostly in Brussels and Bruges. The popularity of Brussels' altarpieces lasted until about 1530, when the output of the Antwerp workshops grew in favour. This was in part because they produced at a lower cost, allocating different portions of the panels among specialised workshop members, a practice Borchert describes as an early form of division of labour.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Multi-panel Netherlandish paintings fell out of favour and were considered old-fashioned as Antwerp Mannerism came to the fore in the mid-16th century. Later the iconoclasm of the Reformation deemed them offensive, and many works in the Low Countries were destroyed. Extant examples are found mostly in German churches and monasteries. As secular works grew in demand, triptychs were often broken up and sold as individual works, especially if a panel or section contained an image that could pass as a secular portrait. A panel would sometimes be cut down to only the figure, with the background over-painted so that "it looked sufficiently like a genre piece to hang in a well-known collection of Dutch 17th-century paintings".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Diptychs were widely popular in northern Europe from the mid-15th to the early 16th century. They consisted of two equally sized panels joined by hinges (or, less often, a fixed frame); the panels were usually linked thematically. Hinged panels could be opened and closed like a book, allowing both an interior and exterior view, while the ability to close the wings allowed protection of the inner images. Originating from conventions in Books of Hours, diptychs typically functioned as less expensive and more portable altarpieces. Diptychs are distinct from pendants in that they are physically connected wings and not merely two paintings hung side by side. They were usually near-miniature in scale, and some emulated medieval "treasury art" -small pieces made of gold or ivory. The tracery seen in works such as van der Weyden's "Virgin and Child" reflects ivory carving of the period. The format was adapted by van Eyck and van der Weyden on commission from members of the House of Valois-Burgundy, and refined by Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling and later Jan van Scorel.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Netherlandish diptychs tend to illustrate only a small range of religious scenes. There are numerous depictions of the Virgin and Child, reflecting the Virgin's contemporary popularity as a subject of devotion. The inner panels consisted mainly of donor portraits – often of husbands and their wives – alongside saints or the Virgin and Child. The donor was nearly always shown kneeling in full or half length, with hands clasped in prayer. The Virgin and Child are always positioned on the right, reflecting the Christian reverence for the right hand side as the "place of honour" alongside the divine.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Their development and commercial worth has been linked to a change in religious attitude during the 14th century, when a more meditative and solitary devotion – exemplified by the Devotio Moderna movement – grew in popularity. Private reflection and prayer was encouraged and the small-scale diptych fitted this purpose. It became popular among the newly emerging middle class and the more affluent monasteries across the Low Countries and northern Germany. Ainsworth says that regardless of size, whether a large altarpiece or a small diptych, Netherlandish painting is a "matter of small scale and meticulous detail". The small size was meant to entice the viewer into a meditative state for personal devotion and perhaps the "experience of miraculous visions".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Late 20th-century technical examination has shown significant differences in technique and style between the panels of individual diptychs. The technical inconsistencies may be the result of the workshop system, in which the more prosaic passages were often completed by assistants. A change in style between panels can be seen, according to historian John Hand, because the divine panel was usually based on general designs sold on the open market, with the donor panel added after a patron was found.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Few intact diptychs survive. As with altarpieces, the majority were later separated and sold as single "genre" pictures. In the workshop system some were interchangeable, and the religious works may have been paired with newly commissioned donor panels. Later many diptychs were broken apart, thus creating two saleable works from one. During the Reformation, religious scenes were often removed.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Secular portraiture was a rarity in European art before 1430. The format did not exist as a separate genre and was only found infrequently at the highest end of the market in betrothal portraits or royal family commissions. While such undertakings may have been profitable, they were considered a lower art form and the majority of surviving pre-16th-century examples are unattributed. Large numbers of single devotional panels showing saints and biblical figures were being produced, but depictions of historical, known individuals did not begin until the early 1430s. Van Eyck was the pioneer; his seminal 1432 "Léal Souvenir" is one of the earliest surviving examples, emblematic of the new style in its realism and acute observation of the small details of the sitter's appearance. His "Arnolfini Portrait" is filled with symbolism, as is the "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin", commissioned as testament to Rolin's power, influence, and piety.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Van der Weyden developed the conventions of northern portraiture and was hugely influential on the following generations of painters. Rather than merely follow van Eyck's meticulous attention to detail, van der Weyden created more abstract and sensual representations. He was highly sought after as a portraitist, yet there are noticeable similarities in his portraits, likely because he used and reused the same underdrawings, which met common ideals of rank and piety. These were then adapted to show the facial characteristics and expressions of the particular sitter.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Petrus Christus placed his sitter in a naturalistic setting rather than a flat and featureless background. This approach was in part a reaction against van der Weyden, who, in his emphasis on sculptural figures, utilised very shallow pictorial spaces. In his 1462 "", Dieric Bouts went further by situating the man in a room complete with a window that looks out at a landscape, while in the 16th century, the full-length portrait became popular in the north. The latter format was practically unseen in earlier northern art, although it had a tradition in Italy going back centuries, most usually in fresco and illuminated manuscripts. Full-length portraits were reserved for depictions of the highest echelon of society, and were associated with princely displays of power. Of the second generation of northern painters, Hans Memling became the leading portraitist, taking commissions from as far as Italy. He was highly influential on later painters and is credited with inspiring Leonardo's positioning of the "Mona Lisa" in front of a landscape view. Van Eyck and van der Weyden similarly influenced the French artist Jean Fouquet and the Germans Hans Pleydenwurff and Martin Schongauer among others.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: The Netherlandish artists moved away from the profile view – popularised during the Italian Quattrocento – towards the less formal but more engaging three-quarter view. At this angle, more than one side of the face is visible as the sitter's body is rotated towards the viewer. This pose gives a better view of the shape and features of the head and allows the sitter to look out towards the viewer. The gaze of the sitter rarely engages the viewer. Van Eyck's 1433 "Portrait of a Man" is an early example, which shows the artist himself looking at the viewer. Although there is often direct eye contact between subject and viewer, the look is normally detached, aloof and uncommunicative, perhaps to reflect the subject's high social position. There are exceptions, typically in bridal portraits or in the case of potential betrothals, when the object of the work is to make the sitter as attractive as possible. In these cases the sitter was often shown smiling, with an engaging and radiant expression designed to appeal to her intended.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Around 1508, Albrecht Dürer described the function of portraiture as "preserving a person's appearance after his death". Portraits were objects of status, and served to ensure that the individual's personal success was recorded and would endure beyond his lifetime. Most portraits tended to show royalty, the upper nobility or princes of the church. The new affluence in the Burgundian Netherlands brought a wider variety of clientele, as members of the upper middle class could now afford to commission a portrait. As a result, more is known about the appearance and dress of the region's people than at any time since the late Roman period. Portraits did not generally require lengthy sittings; typically a series of preparatory drawings were used to flesh out the final panel. Very few of these drawings survive, a notable exception being for his "Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Landscape was a secondary concern to Netherlandish painters before the mid 1460s. Geographical settings were rare and when they did appear usually consisted of glimpses through open windows or arcades. They were rarely based on actual locations; the settings tended to be largely imagined, designed to suit the thematic thrust of the panel. Because most of the works were donor portraits, very often the landscapes were tame, controlled and served merely to provide a harmonious setting for the idealised interior space. In this, the northern artists lagged behind their Italian counterparts who were already placing their sitters within geographically identifiable and closely described landscapes. Some of the northern landscapes are highly detailed and notable in their own right, including van Eyck's unsentimental c. 1430 "Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych" and van der Weyden's widely copied 1435–1440 "Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Van Eyck was almost certainly influenced by the Labours of the Months landscapes the Limbourg brothers painted for the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry". The influence can be seen in the illuminations painted in the Turin-Milan Hours, which show rich landscapes in the tiny "bas de page" scenes. These, according to Pächt, should be defined as early examples of Netherlandish landscape painting. The landscape tradition in illuminated manuscripts would continue for at least the next century. Simon Bening "explored new territory in the genre of landscape", seen in several of the leaves he painted for the c. 1520 "Grimani Breviary".


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: From the late 15th century, a number of painters emphasised landscape in their works, a development led in part by the shift in preference from religious iconography to secular subjects. Second-generation Netherlandish painters applied the mid-14th-century dictum of natural representation. This was born of the rising affluence of the region's middle class, many of whom had now travelled south and seen countryside noticeably different from their flat homeland. At the same time, the later part of the century saw the emergence of specialisation and a number of masters focused on detailing landscape, most notably Konrad Witz in the mid-15th century, and later Joachim Patinir. Most innovations in this format came from artists living in the Dutch regions of the Burgundian lands, most notably from Haarlem, Leiden and 's-Hertogenbosch. The significant artists from these areas did not slavishly reproduce the scenery before them, but in subtle ways adapted and modified their landscapes to reinforce the emphasis and meaning of the panel they were working on.


title: Early Netherlandish painting

text: Patinir developed what is now called the world landscape genre, which is typified by biblical or historical figures within an imagined panoramic landscape, usually mountains and lowlands, water and buildings. Paintings of this type are characterised by an elevated viewpoint, with the figures dwarfed by their surroundings. The format was taken up by, among others, Gerard David and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and became popular in Germany, especially with painters from the Danube school. Patinir's works are relatively small and use a horizontal format; this was to become so standard for landscapes in art that it is now called "landscape" format in ordinary contexts, but at the time it was a considerable novelty, as the vast majority of panel paintings before 1520 were vertical in format. World landscape paintings retain many of the elements developed from the mid-15th century, but are composed, in modern cinematic terms, as a long rather than a medium shot. The human presence remained central rather than serving as mere staffage. Hieronymus Bosch adapted elements of the world landscape style, with the influence especially notable in his single-panel paintings.