Nevertheless, after the painter had planned his picture so as to convey
its message and meaning, he did try to make it beautiful to look upon,
and he often succeeded. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
it was beauty of outline and a pleasant patching together of bright
colours for which the painters strove, both in pictures and in
manuscripts. If you think of this picture for a moment as a coloured
pattern, you will see how pretty it is. The blue wings against the
gold background make a hedge for the angel 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.
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