Dierick Bouts the Elder (c.1415–1475) Dieric Bouts, also known as Dieric Bouts the Elder, was a Dutch painter born around 1415 in Haarlem and died in Louvain (Leuven), Belgium, in 1475. He stands as one of the foremost figures within the burgeoning Early Netherlandish painting school, celebrated for his unparalleled dedication to meticulous realism and his groundbreaking adoption of oil paint on canvas—a transformative innovation that fundamentally reshaped artistic expression during his era. Life and Career Little is known definitively about Bouts’s formative years; biographical details r…