Born and trained in Haarlem, Dieric Bouts the Elder (also: Dirk, Dierick) spent most of his life in Leuven working for Flemish aristocrats. Little is known about his training and work. Even if not actually a pupil of Rogier himself, Bouts was profoundly affected by his work. He continued and developed Rogier’s style to an almost radical degree: his preference of vertical compositions, of types instead of individual, exquisite, thoroughly detailed garments, which conceal the body, looks like a return to the Gothic. Whether Bouts was the founder of this ‘gothic revival’, a characteristic of Netherlandish Northern Renaissance, or whether the painter was simply part of the more general trend sweeping over Europe after the middle of the century, is hard to decide.
c.1445. Oil on panel. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
c.1445. Oil on panel. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
c.1445. Oil on panel. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
c.1445. Oil on panel. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
1462. Oil on wood. National Gallery, London, UK.
c.1464-1468. Oil on oak. Sankt Peter, Louvain, Belgium. Read Note.
1464-1467. Tempera on wood. Sankt Peter, Louvain, Belgium. Read Note.
c.1470-1475. Tempera on wood. Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium. Read Note.
1470s. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France.
Oil on wood. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland.
Oil on wood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA. Read Note.
Thierry Bouts. By V. Deni. Bruxelles. 1957.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary. Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Dirk Bouts (ca. 1410-1475). Een Vlaams primitief te Leuven. by Dieric Bouts. Peeters, 1998.
Bouts Studies: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven, 26-28 November 1998 by Bert Cardon. Peeters Bvba, 2001.