From the end of the twelfth century, Belgian Art, as shown by the works of the goldsmiths, decorators, sculptors and miniaturists, had become independent of German and French influence. A highly trained class of artisans was formed, and, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was organized into regular corporations. Goldsmiths and decorators devoted their talent to the embellishment of churches and ecclesiastical treasures, as well as to decoration of secular buildings such as Cloth Halls or Town Halls and to the designing of banners for the guilds. We still possess a great number of engraved tombstones which reveal an extraordinary development of technique. Soon the figure of the deceased was raised in high relief, and even, as in the tomb of the Count of Artois in the cathedral of St. Denys, the work of Pepin of Huy, raised on the shoulders of standing figures. From the second half of the fourteenth century the most prominent sculptors ceased to be considered as mere artisans. Hennequin of Liege was attached to the court of the French king Charles V, while Andre Beauneveu (1364-90) remained in Flanders as the sculptor of Louis de Male. The striking sculptures of the pit of Moses, at Dijon, were executed by Claus Sluter of Zeeland. These statues, which bear comparison with those of Ghiberti and Donatello, Sluter's contemporaries, suffice to explain the sense of form and of line in the draperies revealed by the early Flemish masters. In the North, as in the South, sculpture developed earlier than painting, and, just as Pisano precedes Giotto, Sluter precedes, and to a certain extent explains, the brothers Van Eyck. The influence of sculpture on painting is made evident from the fact that many statues of the time were gilded and coloured, painters being frequently called in to perform this part of the work. Besides, many sculptors such as Beauneveu and Hennequin were equally skilled in the art of painting. The result of these influences is shown in the _Book of Hours_ of the Duke of Berry, the work of Pol de Limburg, and in the pictures painted in Dijon for Philip the Bold by Melchior Broederlam. The latter's Annunciation, Presentation in the Temple and Flight into Egypt prepare the way for the Adoration of the Lamb, though far from being equal to it. These pictures serve as a link between the Belgian Art of the fifteenth and the fourteenth centuries. The difference to be accounted for is certainly not larger than that separating, a century before, the frescoes of Giotto from the works of Cimabue and his school. Illustration: "PLOURANT." Detail of the tomb of John the Fearless (Dijon Museum). Netherlandish School of the fifteenth century. [_FLEMISH SCHOOL_]