Campin, Robert (c. 1378-1444)

Early Netherlandish painter, active in Tournai from 1406. The few works attributed to him are almost as revolutionary in their naturalism as the van Eyck brothers' Ghent altarpiece, which they may antedate, and he ranks as one of the founders of the Netherlandish School.

Campin's outstanding work is the Mérode Altarpiece (c. 1425, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which shows a characteristic blend of naturalism and elaborate symbolism, together with a new subtlety in modelling and a grasp of pictorial space. Other works include the Virgin and Child Before a Fire Screen (National Gallery, London) and the Werl Altar (Prado, Madrid). His two portraits of a man and woman (National Gallery, London) exemplify the cool but precise tradition of Flemish portraiture, whose secular emphasis was to influence Italian art.