This is a category for painters from the County of Flanders and, more generally, the Southern Netherlands (the southern part of the Low Countries), the leading region in North-European painting during the late gothic and renaissance period. The painters are also classified as Netherlandish. This is a separate category to avoid confusion with Dutch painting and Belgian painting (after 1830).

Although some artists, such as Frans Hals, emigrated to the Northern Netherlands at the start of the Eighty Years' War, Flanders, and art in Antwerp specifically, experienced a great renewal under Peter Paul Rubens in the early seventeenth century. Following the deaths of Jacob Jordaens in 1678 and David Teniers the Younger in 1690, however, there are few prominent Flemish painters. All painters from this region who worked before 1830 can be put in this category. Many painters in this category were not born in the County of Flanders but went there during their life because the wealthy Flemish cities attracted many artists from the neighbouring countries.

See also Category:Early Netherlandish painters for the more correct term for painters before about 1550.