[52] See _Messager des Sciences_, etc., 110, 1858, and Deshaines, _L'Art
Chr?tien en Flandre_, 34 (Douai, 1860, 8°).
After the Maas-Eyck Evangeliary the work of these northern foundations
may well reckon either with the French or German schools until the
fifteenth century. Where otherwise they are not distinguishable, the
Netherlandish miniatures are usually such as prefer plain burnished gold
backgrounds to diapered ones, or have a plain deep blue paled towards
the horizon, and lastly replace the background by a natural, or what was
intended to be a natural, landscape. As a test between French or German
influence generally, the use of green shows the latter, that of blue the
former. Not that this was any ?sthetic point of difference in taste, but
somehow the Germans had the green paint when the French had not, and so
they used it. It is an open question whether Flanders or Italy first
introduced the landscape background, but Flemish artists were so
numerous, so ubiquitous, that we can hardly say where they were not at
work--in France, Italy, or Spain. Plenty of so-called Spanish
illumination is really the work of Flemish craftsmen. This was largely
owing to the political conditions of the times. The Dukes of Burgundy
and the Austrian Archdukes both ruled over Flemish municipalities, and
employed the gildmen as their household "enlumineurs.
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