Giotto died in 1337, and for the next fifty years painters in Italy did little but imitate him.  Scenes from the life of St. Francis and incidents from the legends of other saints remained in vogue, but they were not treated in original fashion by succeeding artists.  The new men only tried to paint as Giotto might have painted, and so far from surpassing him, he was never even equalled by his followers.

We need not burden our memories with the names of these ‘Giottesque’ artists; and now, after this glimpse of an almost vanished world, we will turn our attention to England and to the first picture of our choice.

CHAPTER III

RICHARD II.

Our first picture is a portrait of Richard II. on his coronation day in the year 1377, when he was ten years old.  It is the earliest one selected, and the eyes of those who see it for the first time will surely look surprised.  The jewel-like effect of the sapphire-winged angels and coral-robed Richard against the golden background is not at all what we are accustomed to see.  Nowadays it may take some time and a little patience before we can cast ourselves back to the year 1377 and look at the picture with the eyes of the person who painted it.  Let us begin with a search for his purpose and meaning at least.

The picture is a diptych—­that is to say, it is a painting done upon two wings or shutters hinged, so as to allow of their being closed together.  You have no doubt been wondering why I called it a portrait, for the picture is far from being what to-day would commonly be described as such.  Richard himself is not even the most conspicuous figure; and he is kneeling and praying to the Virgin.  What should we think if any living sovereign, ordering a state portrait, had himself portrayed surrounded on one side by his predecessors on the throne, and on the other side by the Virgin and Child and angels?  But, in the fourteenth century, it was nothing strange that the Virgin and Child, the angels, John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor, Edmund the Martyr, and Richard II. should be thus depicted.  When we have realized that it was usual for a royal patron to command and an artist to paint such an assemblage of personages, as though all of them were then living and in one another’s presence, we have learnt something significant and impressive about a way of thinking in the Middle Ages.  Richard II. thought of himself as the successor of a long line of kings, appointed by the Divine Power to rule a small portion of the Divine Territories, so what more natural than that he, as the newly reigning sovereign, should have his portrait painted, surrounded by his holiest predecessors upon the throne, and in the act of dedicating his kingdom to the Virgin Mary?