Editing Gerard David (section)

==Style==
David's surviving work mainly consists of religious scenes. They are characterised by an atmospheric, timeless, and almost dream like serenity, achieved through soft, warm and subtle colourisation, and masterful handling of light and shadow.<ref name="r157">Ridderbo et al., 157</ref> He is innovative in his recasting of traditional themes and in his approach to landscape, which was then only an emerging genre in northern European painting.<ref name="h63" /> His ability with landscape can be seen in the detailed foliage of his ''Triptych of the Baptism'' and the forest scene in the New York ''Nativity''.<ref name="r157" />

Many of the art historians of the early 20th century, including [[Erwin Panofsky]] and [[Max Jakob Friedländer]] saw him as a painter who did little but distill the style of others and painted in an archaic and unimaginative style. However today most view him as a master colourist, and a painter who according to the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], worked in a "progressive, even enterprising, mode, casting off his late medieval heritage and proceeding with a certain purity of vision in an age of transition."<ref name="met">"[http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gera/hd_gera.htm Gerard David (born about 1455, died 1523)]". [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]. Retrieved 15 February 2013</ref>

In his early work David followed Haarlem artists such as [[Dirk Bouts]], Albert van Oudewater,<ref name=":0" /> and [[Geertgen tot Sint Jans]], though he had already given evidence of superior power as a colourist. To this early period belong the ''St John'' of the [[:de:Richard von Kaufmann|Richard von Kaufmann]] collection in Berlin and the [[George Salting|Salting]]'s ''St Jerome''. In Bruges he came directly under the influence of Memling, the master whom he followed most closely. It was from him that David acquired a solemnity of treatment, greater realism in the rendering of human form, and an orderly arrangement of figures.{{sfn|Konody|1911}}

He visited Antwerp in 1515 and was impressed with the work of [[Quentin Matsys]],<ref name="h63"/> who had introduced a greater vitality and intimacy in the conception of sacred themes. Together they worked to preserve the traditions of the Bruges school against influences of the Italian Renaissance.<ref name=":0" />