正如一个世纪以前形式表现上的最高发展会被说成是由米开朗基罗达到的那样,油画是由鲁本斯而达到顶点的。到17世纪末,在低地国家画室的最后幸存者消失之后,出现了一种技法上的中断,这表明北方画派未经过渡就很快衰落了。随之而来的退步不可避免,某种戏剧性存在于这样的事实中,即这种衰退仅仅是由于一种秘密技法的失传,也就是说,完全是由于材料所引起的。特别奇怪的是,没有任何人过问这种中断的原因,在任何信函或任何论文中都未提到它。 17世纪最后的大师们把玛蒂脂光油(mastic Just as the supreme development of formal expression a century ago would have been said to have been achieved by Michelangelo, the painting culminated with Rubens. By the end of the 17th century, a technical interruption occurred after the disappearance of the last survivors of the lowland country studio, indicating that the northern school of painting declined rapidly without a transition. The ensuing regression is inevitable, with some dramatic existence in the fact that such a decline is merely due to the loss of a secret technique, that is, entirely due to the material. Strangely enough, no one has ever been to the cause of such disruption and has not mentioned it in any correspondence or in any paper. The last giants of the 17th century included mastic