If, Floris you had acquired for yourself as much skill as you had natural ability as a painter (since you preferred to paint many things than to paint a lot, and neither the just delay of the file nor hard work pleased you) – I would cry out ‘yield painters from all lands, whom either our grandfathers or our fathers produced’. Continue Reading 51. Frans Floris
Hail, Lucas, once more dear than all the rest, and no less honoured by me than my own father. Indeed you were the first cause of loving painting offered to me, while you were painting fields and huts with your learned hand. Equal to your skill are your honesty and candour, and whatever [else] can attract the minds of the good with love. Therefore may the fame of your virtue and skill live forever, old man beloved to me on both counts. Continue Reading 49. Lucas Gassel
Who is this new Hieronymus Bosch for the world, versed in imitating the master’s ingenious dreams with such great skill of paintbrush and pen – so that sometimes he surpasses even him. Pieter, [you are] blessed in your spirit, as you are blessed in your skill, for in your own and your old master’s comic type of painting, full of wit, you deserve glorious rewards of praise, everywhere and from everyone, no less than those of any artist. Continue Reading 45. Pieter Bruegel
It does not please [me], Lombard, to write here in a few verses an epigraph which would be suitable to your merits. Those pages contain it which (if our works deserve to be read) the Lampsonian pen wrote about you. Continue Reading 43. Lambert Lombard
Our muse shall not keep silent about you, among the Belgian artists, Joos, [you who are ] no trivial glory of painting. You would have been as happy in your son’s art as in your own, if only the wretch’s brain had remained healthy. Continue Reading 39. Joos van Cleve
The Eburonian city had produced the painter of Dinant, the painter of whom the poet spoke in recent verses. The most favourable site of his homeland had made him entirely an artist, and a master hardly taught him. Tiny Bouviges was jealous of this its neighbour’s glory and produced Hendrik, learned in painting fields. But, Joachim, as much as tiny Bouviges yields to Dinant [in size], so much does Hendrik yield to you. Continue Reading 37. Henri Met de Bles
You too, Matthias, knew how to paint fields in such a way, that our age has scarcely produced your equal. Therefore, if you too are considered among the artists whom Belgium honours with immortal praise, not only fraternal piety grants this to you, but also the praise justly due to your skill. Continue Reading 35. Mathys Cock
You were a painter, but, Pieter, you were not only a painter, you who made your Aelst more known to the world by this skill. But there was much skill in addition, born to you by much labour. Its office was to build beautiful houses. Serlio taught this to the Italians, then you, bilingual interpreter of Serlio, taught the Belgians and the French. Continue Reading 31. Pieter Coecke van Aelst
You too, indeed, man of Maubeuge, will be said in our verses to have educated your age in drawing. For who else could daub Apelles’ boards with flowering pigments smoother to the eye? Granted, you yield in skill to others who followed your age. [But] rare will be the guider of the brush who is equal to you. Continue Reading 27. Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse
Before I used to be a Cyclopean smith, but when a wooing painter began to love on an equal footing with me, and the cautious girl objected to me that she liked the heavy thundering of hammers less than the silent paintbrush, love made me a painter. A tiny hammer, which is the sure note of my paintings, alludes to this. Thus, when Venus had asked Vulcan for arms for her son, you, greatest of poets, made a painter out of a smith. Continue Reading 23. Quentin Matsys
