Leaf Excised from a Book of Hours: The Nativity

This book, made by an artist of the Ghent-Bruges school of illumination, represents the culmination of Flemish book painting. Its main features were the use of rich colors, decorative and illusionistic effects, a love of landscape, and a strong sense of visual narrative. Its most distinctive innovation was the development of a new style of border decoration featuring realistic motifs which cast shadows onto colored grounds to create an effect of spaciousness. These motifs included a diverse assortment of flowers, butterflies, insects, birds, and sprays of acanthus foliage.