The two most important artists of the Baroque era in Northern Europe (what we knew as Flanders in the 15th century) — Rubens and Rembrandt — worked under enormously different circumstances even though they lived only a few hundred miles apart. And that is because Flanders became divided along religious lines in the 16th century. The area which is today Belgium remained Catholic (where Rubens lived), while the area which is today the Netherlands, or Holland (where Rembrandt lived) broke away from Catholic Spain and established an independent and Protestant Republic.