In 1425 he passed
into the service of Philip. He died in 1440. In court service there were
besides, Jean de Bruges, David Aubert, Jean Mielot, Jean Wanguelin,
Loyset Lyeder, and others connected more or less closely with the Maas
valley and the province of Limburg. This valley seems to have been the
cradle of Netherlandish miniature art. It is from this neighbourhood
that Paris was supplied with craftsmen in the days of the brilliant if
reckless administration of the uncles of Philip the Good. There were
schools of illuminating artists in Maestricht and Li?ge, and within a
very brief period the style of the Netherlander surpassed that of all
competitors for facility, clearness, and realism. A marked feature in
this mastery is the free use of architectural and sculptural design. All
Gothic draperies are in some degree sculpturesque, and in miniatures we
find sculpture to be the ruling principle. Perhaps it was the practice
of uniting the crafts of painter and "imagier" in one person that
fostered this peculiarity. But certain it is that Netherlandish
illumination, in its border foliages, after the taste for the larger
vine and acanthus leaf had superseded the ivy, the drawing is studiously
sculpturesque. Many of the Gantois borders are like undercut wood
carvings.
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