Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/323

Rh ment, the French painters developed a skill by the beginning of the thirteenth century that was not attained in Italy till its close; yet joined with this skill the conventions of immaturity are everywhere conspicuous. The modelling of form is very imperfect. Saliences are indicated conventionally by paling the colour, while depressions are expressed by deepening it. Of natural effects of light, or even of indication of the direction from which light falls, there are none whatever, nor is there any expression of cast shadows. Flesh is rendered of a creamy-white, with slight reddening of cheeks and lips. The features are drawn in with fine lines of brown or black, and a frank outline describes every contour, whether of general form or of detail. In the twelfth century the outline is brown, and both figures and backgrounds are generally light in tone, while in the thirteenth century the outlines become black, and backgrounds and figures become more intense in hue—possibly through the influence of the brilliancy of the stained glass which was coming into more general use than ever before.

Usually in the thirteenth century the backgrounds are quite flat, and they are generally either of an ultramarine blue or of a brownish-red. In some cases, as in Fig. 190, from the Life of St. Denis, a manuscript of 1252 in the National Library of Paris, figures are represented with no ground under their feet. No correct expression of different planes of distance, or of perspective, is attempted. Where one figure has to be represented behind another, the farther one is but partially drawn, like the farther horse in this illustration, which is represented without legs. The whole character of the work is thus essentially conventional and decorative, yet it is often both tender in expression and beautiful in design, and it rarely fails, in its various quarterings, to exhibit a fine harmony of colour combinations.

This painting is, of course, largely derived from the traditional art that had, from the earliest times, been cultivated by the various religious orders of Europe. But, unlike sculpture, which, as we have seen, was also largely derived from the same sources, it failed to develop new principles or characteristics of importance. Technically it remained for the most part stationary all through the Gothic period, owing, doubtless, to the fact that the main artistic