Mosan art and the Gothic
Goldsmiths along the Meuse and Gothic towns in Flanders laid the foundations of the art of the Low Countries.
The art history of the Low Countries begins not with paintings but with metal. Along the river Meuse, in towns such as Liège, Huy and Maastricht, goldsmiths and bronze founders of European standing were at work in the 12th century. They made reliquary shrines, altar ornaments and baptismal fonts for monasteries and churches. This so-called Mosan art was calm, classically balanced and technically refined. It is counted among the finest art forms of the Romanesque period and spread far beyond the region. The objects were precious, and many have been lost to war, plunder and melting down.
In the 13th and 14th centuries the towns of Flanders and Brabant grew into some of the richest in Europe. Bruges, Ghent and Ypres lived off the trade in woollen cloth. Their burghers built large Gothic churches, vast cloth halls and tall bell towers, known as belfries, that proclaimed the town's freedom and independence. In the north, Utrecht raised its cathedral and a cathedral tower that is still the tallest church tower in the Netherlands. In the stone-poor coastal lands, churches were often built of brick.
Around 1400 the region came under the dukes of Burgundy. They were great patrons of art and drew Netherlandish artists to their court in Dijon and to Paris. There the sculptor Claus Sluter from Haarlem and the Limbourg brothers from Nijmegen created some of the best-known works of the late Middle Ages. The stage was thus set for the great breakthrough in Flanders in the 1420s. Netherlandish artists had become sought after throughout Europe.