The characteristics of Italian Baroque art were whole-heartedly adopted and transformed by artists in Northern Europe. Flanders and the Dutch Republic produced three of the greatest artists of all time: Peter Paul Rubens, who painted sensuous pictures featuring voluptuous women (female figures who inspired the term “Rubenesque”); Rembrandt, whose dazzling virtuosity in chiaroscuro and in “coarse”realism set a new standard; and Vermeer, who used light in a dramatic way. in France, the Palace of Versailles provided an example of quintessential Baroque architecture.