Hugo van der Goes and the Devotio Moderna Karel Vereycken, December 25, 2020 Van der Goes' Portinari triptych, detail : the shepherds Dutch historian Bernhard Ridderbos' fine book Schilderkunst in de Bourgondische Nederlanden (Painting in the Burgundian Netherlands, Davidsfonds, Leuven 2015) is a feast for the eyes and the mind. Ridderbos, already irritated by the skilful propaganda campaign waged for centuries by Italian bankers for whom "the" Renaissance was only Italian and for whom the fiammingo were only "Primitives", starts his book by setting fire (not without reason) to a work that remains a benchmark, The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919), by Johan Huizinga (1872-1945). For this influential Dutch historian and rector of the University of Leyden: “Van Eyck's art, in its ability to depict holy things, attained a high degree of detail and naturalism, undoubtedly marking a point of departure on the strict art-historical level, but in reality signifying an end in terms of the cultural-historical level. The extreme tension between of the divine was