hed) polychromy and gilding established a standard of realism with which "panel painters were almost invariably going to compete" (Harbison 44). Rogier van der Weyden's (1399/1400-1464) Madrid Deposition (c. 1435) is a prime example of the influence of painted sculpture in the shallow box-like space allotted to the figures and the crisp, expressive lines of their drapery (Harbison fig. 28).
Other arts, especially luxurious decorative products such as tapestries and metalwork, were also very important. These objects were sought after in noble circles to a much greater degree than painting had been since the greater part of Jan van Eyck's (c. 1390-1441) artistic duties at the court of the Duke of Burgundy and consisted of "decorating castles and contriving ephemeral displays, such as floats for ducal processions and food designs for banquets" (Harbison 48). Among the most important of the luxury items that have survived are the illuminated scriptures and prayerbooks of which the most famous is the TrFs Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (c. 1415) painted by the Limbourg brothers Pol, Jan and Herman (fl. 1380-1416). The minutely detailed naturalism of their pages prefigures the Netherlandish painters' interest in exacting, scrupulous attention to detail. But, as Harbison points out in regard to their depiction of Saint Michael Battling the Dragon of the Apocalypse above Mont Saint-Michel (c. 1415), their art was not so fully realist as it might seem. In this picture the brothers showed a completed version of the Abbey of Saint-Michel that never existed. In other words, they offered a detailed, naturalistic picture of an ideal.
Nevertheless, the depiction of the world was an unusually strong preoccupation of the Netherlandish painters. Among those artists who worked in the early part of the century, the output of the Tournai painter Robert Campin (c. 1378-1444) and that of the Master of FlTmalle, is sometimes regarded as distinct...