; to see
it would give you a good idea of the costliness and elaboration of
the finest work of that day. The courts of these four brothers were
centres of artistic production in all kinds--sculpture, metal-work,
tapestries, illuminated manuscripts and pictures, and there was a
strong spirit of rivalry among the artists to see who could make the
loveliest things, and among the patrons as to which could secure the
best artists in his service.
These four princes gave an important impulse to the production of
beautiful things in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, but it is needless
to burden you with the artists' names.
In the fourteenth century an artist was a workman who existed to do
well the work that was desired of him. He was not an independent man
with ideas of his own, who attempted to make a living by painting what
he thought beautiful, without reference to the ideas of a buyer. Of
course, if people prefer and buy good things when they see them, good
things will be likely to be made, but if those with money to spend
have no taste and buy bad things or order ugly things to be made, then
the men who had it in them to be great artists may die unnoticed, because
the beautiful things they could have made are not called for.
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