and he often succeeded. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
it was beauty of outline and a pleasant patching together of bright
colours for which the painters strove, both in pictures and in
manuscripts. If you think of this picture for a moment as a coloured
pattern, you will see how pretty it is. The blue wings against the
gold background make a hedge for the angel faces and look extremely
well. If the figure of Richard II. seems flat, if you feel as though
he were cut out of cardboard and had no thickness, then turn your mind
to consider only the outline of the figure. It is very graceful. Artists
in the thirteenth century sometimes made their figures over-long if
they thought that a sweep of graceful line would look well in a certain
position in their picture; the drapery was bent into impossible curves
if so they fell into a pretty pattern.

In the fourteenth century, beauty of outlines still prevailed, even
when they contained plain masses of brilliant colour so pure and
gem-like that the pictures almost came to look like stained-glass
windows. In fact probably the constant sight of stained-glass windows
in the churches greatly influenced the painters' way of work. The
contrast of divers colours placed next one another was more startling
than we find in later painting, whilst an effort was made to finish
every detail as though it were to be looked at through a magnifying
glass.

In this picture which we are now learning how to see, the Virgin was
to be shown standing in a meadow of flowers. A modern artist knows
how to paint the general effect of many flowers growing out of grass,
but the medieval painter had not the skill to do that. He had not learnt
to look at the effect of a mass of flowers as a whole, nor could he
have rendered such an effect with the colours and processes he
possessed. He knew what one flower looked like, and thought that many
must be a continued repetition of one. But it was impossible to paint
a great number of flowers close together, each finished in detail,
so he chose instead to paint a few as completely as he could, and leave
the rest to the imagination of the spectator. That was his way of making
a selection from nature; thus he hoped to suggest the idea of a flowery
meadow, since he could not hope to render the look of it.

Likewise, all the details of the dresses are minutely painted. The
robes of Richard and of Edmund the Martyr are beautiful examples of
the careful and painstaking work characteristic of the Middle Ages.
No medieval painter spared himself trouble. Although he had not
mastered the art of drawing the figure, he had learnt how to paint
jewellery and stuffs beautifully, and delighted in doing it. The
drawing of the figures you can see to be imperfect, yet nothing could
be sweeter in feeling than the bevy of girl angels with roses in their
hair surrounding the Virgin. Most of them are not unlike English girls
of the present day, and the critics who say that this picture must
have been painted by a Frenchman may be asked where he is likely to
have found these English models for his angels.

Possibly the face of Richard himself may have been painted from life,
for the features correspond closely enough with the large full-face
portrait of him in Westminster Abbey, and with the sculptured figure
upon his tomb. He certainly does not look like a child of ten, for
his state robes and crown give him a grown-up appearance. But if you
regard the face carefully you can see that it is still that of a child.

The gold background in the original shines out brilliantly, for after
the gold was laid on, it was polished with an agate, which gives it
a burnished effect, and then the little patterns were carefully punched
so as not to pierce the gold and thereby expose the white ground beneath.
There is a jewel-like quality in the colour such as you can see in
manuscripts of the time, and it is possible that the painter may have
learned his art as an illuminator of manuscripts. Artists in those
days seldom confined themselves to one kind of work. We do not know
this man's name, and are not even certain whether he was French or
English.

Before, as in the time of Richard, painting had been mainly a decorative
art, and the object of making pictures was to adorn the pages of a
book, or the walls and vaults of a building. The most vital artistic
energies of Western Europe in the thirteenth century had gone into
the building of the great cathedrals and abbeys, which are to-day the
glory of that period. Most medieval paintings that still exist in
England are decorative wall-paintings of this kind, and only traces
of a few remain. In many country places you can see poor and faded
vestiges of painting which adorned church walls in the thirteenth
century, and occasionally you may come upon a bit by some chance better
preserved. These old wall-paintings were done upon the dry plaster.
The discovery, or rather the revival, of 'fresco' painting (that is,
of painting done upon the wet surface of freshly plastered walls, a
more durable process) was made in Italy and did not penetrate to
England.

Richard II. was not the only art-loving King of his time. You have
read of John, King of France, who was taken prisoner at the Battle
of Poitiers by the Black Prince, father of Richard. During his
captivity he lived in considerable state in London at the Savoy Palace,
which occupied the site of the present Savoy Hotel in the Strand; he
brought his own painter from France with him, who painted his portrait
which still exists in Paris. This King John was the father of four
remarkable sons, Charles V., King of France, with whom Edward III.
and the Black Prince fought the latter part of the Hundred Years' War;
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; John, Duke of Berry; and Louis,
Duke of Anjou. In this list, all are names of remarkable men and great
art-patrons, about whom you may some day read interesting things.
Numerous lovely objects still in existence were made for them, and
would not have been made at all if they had not been the men they were.
It was only just becoming possible in the fourteenth century for a