With the art of Michelangelo, the High Renaissance came to its climax. His work, in fact, betrayed signs of a changing attitude in the art of the day. The twisted, tormented figures and the flattened space of his painting of the The Last Judgement, for example, already displayed a new direction in European art.
 
Venice was the most important northern Italian city of the Renaissance. The Venetians lived a gay and luxurious life. Enjoying the benefits of an active trade with the east, they imported silks, jewels, slaves, and exotic foods. Close connections with Eastern art and naturally colorful locations inspired the Venetian painters to use bright colors. They were influenced by the new “scientific” developments in Florentine art. But their use of anatomy and perspective was combined with their love of color and pageantry.
 
The greatest of the 15th-century Venetian painters was Giovanni Bellini (1430?-1516). Mantegna’s friendship with Bellini had a direct influence on Venetian painting. Bellini’s rich, mellow color and warm lighting bring out the human qualities of his serene madonnas and saints. He was one of the first Italians to use oil paint on canvas.
 
Oil painting became popular in Venice by the end of the 15th century. The Venetians learned a great deal from Flemish artists. Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (1370?-1440) is often given the credit for developing an important oil technique.
 The Flemish and German styles of the early 15th century were completely different from the early Renaissance style of the Florentines. Instead of simple geometric arrangements of three-dimensional figures, as in Masaccio’s paintings, the northern Europeans aimed at creating realistic pictures by rendering countless details—intricate floor patterns, drapery designs, and miniature landscapes. This intricate style of the north did not develop from a humanistic classical art (ancient Roman and Greek) but from Gothic tradition of mysticism and tormented realism.
 
Van Eyck’s Madonna of the Canon van der Paele, painted in 1436, is an excellent example of Flemish realism. All the details of the room—the patterned carpet, the armor of Saint George, the architecture—make this picture seem very real. There is no sign of the Italian sense of beauty here: the figures are not idealized. In the faces of the people can be seen the wrinkles and imperfections of real life.
 
One of the best known Flemish artists of the second half of  the  15th century was Hugo van der Goes (1440?-82). When the Florentine painters saw Hugo’s work, they were impressed by its lifelike quality. This Flemish influence can be seen in later Florentine paintings.

There were many such interchanges between Italy and Flanders in the course of the century. Gradually the hard outlines of the Flemish style became softer because of Italian influences, and by the middle of the 16th century, the ideas of the Renaissance had been absorbed into Flemish art.