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.
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