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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2011
One of the most remarkable periods in the history of English art is that which covers the closing years of the thirteenth and the opening years of the fourteenth centuries. This period is distinguished, among other evidences of intense artistic vitality, by the appearance of a group of illuminated manuscripts, some of which were produced by the famous East Anglian school of illuminators, while others had their origin in London. Their works bear the impress of their artists' contact with a busy world; they mark an advance upon their predecessors, not however because they cut themselves adrift from the ‘hieratic’ traditions maintained in the monastic houses, for at least another century had to pass before this finally occurred, but in their purely artistic qualities; they express swifter movement, show more vivid observation, and manifest a greater delight in all natural and human form. For a century or more English art had shown remarkable powers of growth: now it began to emerge from the cloister; artists and craftsmen congregated in centres, and they became forcing houses, as it were, of a new and luxuriant growth, which was peculiarly and essentially English without any immediate counterpart on the continent.
page 180 note 1 The removal of whitewash and other obliterations from the surface of ancient wall-paintings is a task fraught with many difficulties and one which sometimes can be done only imperfectly at best. Usually, however, it is undertaken by people with little or no experience, and what is of more importance without sufficient care. Considerable harm is frequently done, before it is realized how much paint has actually come away with the whitewash, and much of this could have been avoided if greater care and patience had been applied to the work. To uncover paintings of any extent successfully sometimes involves weeks of anxious labour.
page 180 note 2 Experience has shown that, as a general rule, photographs of indistinct wall-paintings are of little value. Accidents of light and shade on an uneven surface, blemishes and other defects, which appear to be accentuated, tend to confuse the subject. On the other hand, it is possible for the copyist, viewing the wall from all angles and in all lights, to make it yield more of its secrets than the camera can reveal. And when some knowledge of what one might expect to find is added to extreme care and patience, the copyist discovers that there is much more to be found than is apparent in the first few hours or even days.
page 181 note 1 See Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, by Émile Male, translated by Dora Nussey.
page 181 note 2 Like so many other painted patterns of this and earlier periods their origin can be traced to the reticulated masonry of Romanesque building.
page 182 note 1 It would be out of place here to discuss at length the extent to which the painter was indebted to the illuminator, and vice-versa. The painter certainly owed much to the illuminator, and on the other hand the illuminator sometimes copied the painter. Perhaps it would not be wise to attempt too violent a separation of the two arts, as the connexion of the one with the other must have been very close.
page 184 note 1 To estimate with any precision the length of time taken to paint the whole of a village church such as Croughton would be of course impossible, but roughly one might safely say that a painter and one assistant probably took no longer than two or three months.