RENAISSANCE PAINTING. In central and northern Italy, in the 14th century, the Giotteschi, or scholars and imitators of Giotto, soon lost the inspiration and initiative of his art. His great principle of the direct study' of nature was much neglected; portraiture, which he had undertaken with imperfect knowledge, became a distinct branch of the art only in the 15th century; and the landscape sentiment was as yet undeveloped. Nevertheless, the seeds of the great awakening of the human intellect, which brought with it a knowledge of antique art and a new intimacy with both Nature and contemporary man,— and a consequent develop ment of all the arts,— were germinating; it appeared almost in the first decade of the 15th century in both Italy and the Netherlands. For this Renaissance, the art of painting presented the must favorable means of expression, of rendering the spiritual rather than the merely corporeal, the intangible as well as the appear ance of reality; and also as an outlet for the individuality which had been so long smothered under formulas and conventions. Rather curi ously, this restoration of a long-lost art began, among the Flemish painters, with a suddenness, a completeness, which it was impossible to main tain,—the first great work which figures in the history of this restoration, the great altar piece in the church of Saint Bavon in Ghent, painted by the brothers Huybrecht (Hubert) and Jan van Eyck (q.v.), is an example of com pleteness of pictorial representation, spiritual and technical, which the survivor of these paint ers himself was not able to equal in his other works. The mastery seems complete even of the new process of oil painting, which they are generally credited with having firstpractically employed. (See On- PAINTING). Contempo rary with this Flemish school of Bruges and Ghent was another of Brabant, with the centre in Brussels, founded by Rogier van der Wey den (q.v.) similar in tendencies. Holland developed an independent school, at Haarlem, the chief of which was Dierick Bouts (d. 1475), whose works show the influence of Van der Weyden, but are marked by somewhat greater luminousness and richness of color and display a knowledge of aerial perspective in landscape. In the paintings of Hans Mendinc (q.v.) of Bruges many of the archaic qualities of his predecessors disappear and are replaced by a greater suavity and feeling for beauty. The influence of the Van Eycks extended down to the end of the 15th century, and Flanders was the seat of a great artistic production, painters and students passing backward and forward between her borders and those of Italy. In France, in the latter part of the century, there was a northern school and a smaller one in Provence, at the court of Rene d'Anjou; but the important paintings of this period were nearly all destroyed in the religious wars and the Revolution, and our knowledge of the art is derived chiefly from the miniatures.
The patronage which had been extended to the new art in the Netherlands, by princes, corporations, the Church and private individuals in the 15th century, was continued in the early years of the 16th. Foremost among the im portant representatives of the Northern spirit was Quinten Massys (q.v.), or Massijs, of Ant werp (d. in 1530). Jan Gossart (q.v.), called Mabuse, from his native town of Maubeuge in Hainault, on the contrary, after his journey to Italy, adopted many of the characteristics of the Southern painters, which found favor in the eyes of his countrymen. The Dutch painters of this period were numerous; the first to become widely known abroad was Lucas Jakobsz, called Lucas van Leyden. The movement to ward realism and naturalism was slower in the schools of Germany, the chief of which was that of Cologne; the earliest important work now extant is the large altar-piece, a triptych known as the Dombild, painted by Stephen Lochener (d. 1451). The painters of this school substituted for the pictorial or distant back grounds of the Flemings generally a flat, gold one and they differed from them also in the retention of the disc-shaped nimbus behind the beads. The Swabian school, chiefly Alsatian, was distinguished by a remarkable artist, a bold innovator, Martin Schongauer, the greatest master in Germany of his time but now best known by his drawings and engravings. The schools of Ulm, Nordlingen and Augsburg were more or less influenced by the Flemish art; two families of painters, the Burckmairs and the Holbeins, combined to raise the fame of Augsburg to the highest degree. In both, an illustrious father was succeeded by a still more illustrious son,— Thoman Burclanair by Hans (q.v.), and Hans Holbein, the elder (q.v.), by his famous son of the same name. The latter, and his brother Ambrosius, are found in Basel in 1515-16. As the most brilliant representative of the German Renaissance, Hans Holbein, the younger (q.v.), rose superior to the limitations of the art of his time and excelled in all branches. His large mural paintings have all been destroyed; but the votive picture executed for the family of the Burgomaster Meyer in 1526, his portraits—including those of the period of his sojourn in England at the court of Henry VIII—and his designs and engrav ings, have been preserved. From the Franco nian school, of which Nuremberg was the centre, came the most formidable of his rivals, Al brecht Diirer (q.v.), a pupil of Michael Wolge mut, painter of altar-pieces and of careful por traits and a skilful wood-engraver. The influ ence of Nuremberg was diffused over a wide area,— Schleswig, eastern Germany, Bohemia and Poland.