The ‘new art’ was fully fledged when Hubert and Jan van Eyck painted the Ghent Altarpiece, the first datable work in the new style. How, though, did the Van Eycks arrive at this point? What influenced them? What was pre-Eyckian painting like? We shall explore these questions through artworks produced for the Burgundian rulers of the Netherlands and other elite patrons, while also considering the all-important development of the oil technique, fundamental to the new art.