The Renaissance as it took shape north of the Alps — in Flanders, Germany and the Low Countries — where painters like Van Eyck, Bruegel, Dürer and Bosch developed an alternative tradition rooted in oil paint, microscopic detail and a less idealized humanism than the Italian masters. Northern painters lavished attention on landscape, weather, peasant life and the textures of cloth, metal and skin. Where the Italians sought timeless ideal forms, the Northerners painted the world as it was, often shot through with moral allegory and earthy humor.
