J. Henry Middleton

“ Towards the close of the twelfth century the Gothic style of architecture, with its pointed arches and quadripartite vaults, was brought to England by the Cistercian monks of northern France, and soon spread far and wide throughout the kingdom.
The artists of this century began to study the human form, its pose and movement, and also in their drapery learnt to depict gracefully designed folds with much truth and with a keen sense of beauty [3] .
Anglo-Norman school. ”

“ In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, owing largely to the Black Death and the protracted Wars of the Roses, the arts of England fell into the background, but it should not be forgotten that there was one period, from about 1260 to 1300 or 1320, when England occupied the foremost place in the artistic history of the world. ”

“ The embroidered miniatures on these marvellous pieces of needlework resemble closely in style the illuminations in fine Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the thirteenth century, and in many cases have obviously been copied from manuscript miniatures.
Decay of English art. There is, in short, ample evidence to show that the Anglo-Norman art of the thirteenth century, in almost all branches, and more especially on English soil, had reached a higher pitch of perfection, aesthetic and technical, than had been then attained by any other country in the world. ”

“ A fine typical example of English manuscript art at the close of the twelfth century is to be seen in the so-called Huntingfield Psalter, which was executed, probably in some monastic house in Yorkshire, a little before 1200 A.D. [5] It contains 68 miniatures of very fine style, delicately painted on backgrounds partially of gold; the subjects are taken from both the Old and the New Testament, beginning with the Creation of the World. ”

“ The Black Death. On the whole the style of figure painting in English manuscripts deteriorated very distinctly after the ravages caused by the Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century; that is to say the average of excellence became lower; and, especially in the fifteenth century, a good deal of very coarse and inferior manuscript illumination was produced. On the other hand there were some illuminators in England whose work is not surpassed by that of any contemporary French or Flemish artist. ”

“ Even in Italy, Cimabue and his assistants were still labouring in the fetters of Byzantine conventionalism, and produced no works which for jewel-like beauty of colour and grace of form were quite equal to the paintings of England under Edward I.
English sculpture. In sculpture too England was no less pre-eminent; no continental works of the time are equal in combined dignity and beauty, both of the heads and of the drapery, to the bronze effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor of Castile on the north side of Edward the Confessor's Chapel at Westminster. ”

“ The whole figures of the angels, their beautiful serene faces, their exquisitely pencilled wings with feathers of bright colours, the simple dignified folds of their drapery, all are executed with the most wonderful certainty of touch and the highest possible sense of romantic beauty. ”

“ Another specially English subject is Saint George, who was at first the Crusaders' Patron and then the national Saint of England. He is usually represented as a Knight on horseback slaying the dragon with a lance. This subject did not come into popular use till the fourteenth century [31] .
Both in England and in France, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, manuscript Chronicles and Histories of both ancient and modern times formed a large and important class of manuscripts; and these were usually copiously illustrated with miniatures. ”

“ English art at its highest period of development. The thirteenth century was the culminating period of Anglo-Norman art of all kinds; and indeed for a brief period England occupied the foremost position in the world with regard to nearly all the principal branches of the fine arts. ”

“ In the fourteenth century the plain gold background was mostly superseded by delicate diapers of lozenge and chessboard form, with alternating squares of gold and blue or red, very rich and beautiful in effect, and sometimes of extreme minuteness of scale, so that each lozenge or square of the diaper is not larger than an ordinary pin's head. ”

“ In places where the text does not reach to the end of the line the space is filled up by a narrow band of ornament in gold and colours, occupying the same space that a complete line of words would have done. This method of avoiding any blank spaces in the page, and making the whole surface one unbroken mass of beauty was employed in the finest manuscripts of this and of other classes, especially the manuscripts of France and Flanders. ”

“ Thus, for example, the magnificent altar-piece in the Brera Gallery in Milan, painted by Piero della Francesca about the year 1480 [27] , has, in the most conspicuous place in the foreground, a kneeling figure of the donor, Duke Federigo da Montefeltro of Urbino, which is actually larger in scale than the chief figures of the picture—the Madonna and attendant angels. During the fourteenth century, both in altar-pictures and in manuscript illuminations, the portraits of living people are treated in a more subordinate way. ”

“ The drawing of the faces and hair is specially beautiful, being executed with a fine, crisp line with the most precise and delicate touch, worthy of a Greek artist of the best period. The drawing of the hair and beard of the male figures is most masterly, with waving curls full of grace and spirit, in spite of the extreme minuteness of the scale. ”

“ Another form of background, used in Anglo-Norman miniatures, consists of delicate scroll patterns or outlined diapers put in with a fine brush and with fluid gold over a ground of flat opaque colour. Gold scroll-work of this kind on a pink ground is specially characteristic of miniatures painted in England during the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth century. ”

“ Architectural growth. In the eleventh century building in stone on a large scale for military and ecclesiastical purposes had been introduced into England by the Normans in place of the frail wooden structures of the Anglo-Saxons. ”

“ The Anglo-Norman School of Manuscripts.
The twelfth century in England and Northern France was a period of rapid artistic development in almost all branches of the arts, from a miniature illumination to a great Cathedral or Abbey church. ”

“ Fra Angelico's earliest works were manuscript illuminations, executed about the year 1407 in the Dominican Convent at Fiesole.↑ The Bodleian library (Douce, 366) possesses a specially beautiful manuscript Psalter, which belonged to Robert of Ormsby, a monk of Norwich Abbey.↑ In all periods the Benedictines were the chief monastic scribes and miniaturists; the Mother House at Monte Cassino was one of the chief centres in Italy for the production of manuscripts, and wherever the Benedictines settled they brought with them the art of manuscript illumination ”

“ It should be noticed that the first growth of portrait painting in Western Europe seems to have arisen out of this custom of introducing portrait figures of patrons and donors at the beginning of important manuscripts. ”

“ Another very similar manuscript both in date and style was sold at the Perkins sale, in June, 1873, for £1320 [28] . This is a magnificently illuminated folio of "The Siege of Troye compiled by Dann John Lydgate, Monke of Bury"; it contains seventy miniature paintings, chiefly of battle scenes, in which the combatants wear armour of the first half of the fifteenth century. The illuminated borders are of the boldly decorative English type mentioned above, and the miniatures are large in scale, in many cases extending across the whole width of the page with its double column of text. ”

“ The manuscript was for this reason unfortunately left unfinished, and was afterwards completed by a very inferior illuminator. The letter B on the first page is filled by an exquisite miniature of the Royal Psalmist; and in the lower part of the border is the slaying by an infantile David, of Goliath, represented as a gigantic knight in chain armour. At intervals round the border are minute but very accurately painted birds of various kinds, including the gull, kingfisher, woodpecker, linnet, crane and goldfinch. ”