This phenomenon, undoubtedly one of the most singular and delightful in the history of Early Netherlandish painting, is characterized primarily by an unbridled formal eclecticism that freely elaborates on the most diverse artistic experiences—both ancient and contemporary—of Flemish painting. Employing calligraphic lines and contours to achieve a deliberately complex composition, often pushed to the extreme, these artists revel in the extravagant. Their art is characterized by a lens-like quality, where objects and space, near and far, are treated in the same manner, sometimes with meticulous realism and at other times with whimsical synthesis.

Photographic details are accompanied by theatrical staging of architectures that range from the hyper-Gothic to the classically inspired, populated by figures enlivened by pyrotechnic iconographic inventions, exotic costumes, caricatured physiognomes, and emphatic gestures, all in a shimmering kaleidoscope of colors. The overall effect is a sense of the plausible and the impossible simultaneously.