Art Gallery

Christus, Petrus (between 1415/1420 - 1472 or 1473), after a long period in oblivion, Christus is today regarded as Jan van Eyck's successor. He was probably van Eyck's pupil, and on his death in 1444 took over the workshop and completed van Eyck's unfinished work.

However, this may not be true since probably he arrived to Bruges only after the death of van Eyck. It is certainly true that he was overwhelmingly influenced by van Eyck, and his copies and variations of his work helped to spread the Eyckian style. Christus's work is more summary than van Eyck's, however, his figures sometimes rather doll-like and without van Eyck's feeling of inner life. The influence of Rogier van der Weyden is also evident in Christus's work; The Lamentation, is clearly based on van der Weyden's great Prado Deposition, but the figures have completely lost their dramatic impact.

His significance today lies in his further development of the art of perspective. He was the first painter in the North who arrived empirically at the law of linear perpective and who applied it. His significant portraits are marked by their concentration on just a few characteristic details. He was also the first Dutch master to place the sitter not before a neutral background but in front of a recognisable interior. After he was made master and burgher of Bruges in 1444, Van Eyck's influence waned and was replaced by his interest in van der Weyden and Campin.

His representation of background, often in the form of landscapes in a mood of quiet harmony, influenced later Netherlandisch painters, in paticular Bouts, Ouwater and Geertgen. There was no further development in his later work, of which only six signed and dated pictures survive.