Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/55

Rh MURAL DECORATION 45 day. Figures were also often painted on the jambs of the windows and on the piers and soffit of the arches, especially that opening into the chancel. Fie;. 11. Wall- Painting of St Christopher. Large life-size. The little Norman church at Kempley in Gloucestershire (date about 1100) has perhaps the best-preserved specimen of the com plete early decoration of a chancel. 1 The north and south walls are occupied by figures of the twelve apostles in architectural niches, six on each side. The east wall had single figures of saints at the sides of the central window, and the stone barrel vault is covered with a representation of St John s apocalyptic vision Christ in majesty surrounded by the evangelistic beasts, the seven candlesticks, and other figures. The chancel arch itself and the jambs and mouldings of the windows have stiff geometrical designs, and over the arch, towards the nave, is a large picture of the &quot;Doom.&quot; The whole scheme is very complete, no part of the internal plaster or stone-work being undecorated with colour. Though the drawing is rude, the figures and their drapery are treated broadly and with dignity. Simple earth colours are used, painted in tempera on a plain white ground, which covers alike both the plaster of the rough walls and the smooth stone of the arches and jambs. In the 13th century the painters of England reached a very high point of artistic power and technical skill, so much so that at that time paintings were produced by native artists quite equal, if not superior, to those of the same period anywhere on the Continent, not except ing even Italy. The central paintings on the walls of the chapter-house and on the retable of the high altar of Westminster Abbey are not surpassed by any of the smaller works even of such men as Cimabue and Duccio di Buoninsegna, who were living when these Westminster paintings were executed. Unhappily, partly through the poverty and anarchy brought about by the French wars and the Wars of the Roses, the development of art in England made but little progress after the beginning of the 14th century, and it was not till a time when the renaissance of art in Italy had fallen into a state of degra dation and decay that its influence reached the British shores. In the 15th century some very beautiful and noble work, somewhat affected by Flemish influence, was produced in England (fig. 12), chiefly in the form of figures painted on the oak panels of chancel and chapel screens, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk ; but, fine as many of these are, they cannot be said to rival in any sense the works of the Van Eycks and other painters of that time in Flanders. To return to the 13th century, the culminating period of English art in painting and sculpture, much was owed to Henry III. s love for and 1 See Arcliieologia, vol. xlvi., 1880. patronage of the fine arts ; he employed a large number of painters to decorate his various castles and palaces, especi ally the palace of Westminster, one large hall of which was known as the &quot;painted chamber&quot; from the rows of fine pictures with which its walls were covered. After the 13th century the &quot;masonry pattern&quot; was disused for the lower parts of walls, and the chevrony and other stiff FIG. 12. 15th-century English Painting St John the Evangelist. patterns for the borders were replaced by more flowing designs (Plate I.). The character of the painted figures became less monumental in style; greater freedom of drawing and treatment was adopted, and they cease in any way to recall the archaic majesty and grandeur of the Byzantine mosaics. A detailed description of the develop ment of the successive styles of mural painting would be almost a complete history of English art, which space does not allow here, but it may be noted that during the