Summary

The period of the International Style did not last longer than a man's life span. Seen in historical perspective, this was hardly a period but only a moment; yet to emphasize how much was decided and how many ideas were in ferment in that moment let us quote Erwin Panofsky's now classic definition:

"From about 1325 the Northern painters and book illuminators felt compelled to absorb the Italian innovations until, towards the end of the fourteenth century, a state of equilibrium was reached. This state of equilibrium marks the phase known as 'the International Style of around 1400', when the influences flowed back and forth almost to the point of promiscuity. And it was from this fluid phase that, after a new parting of the ways, the Italy of Masaccio and Fra Angelico and the Flanders of the Master of Flémalle and Jan van Eyck emerged as the only Great Powers in European painting."