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.