MEDIAEVAL PAINTING 



A N account of the remains of Mediaeval painting in the county of 



/ % Norfolk is, in point of fact, an epitome of the art as practised 



/ % throughout England in the middle ages, but the reason for the 



introduction of the present paper in this place lies in this, that 



in none of the other English counties do the relics of the art exist in such 



numbers, or of so varied a kind. 



The examples of painting to be described may be broadly divided into 

 two classes. The first includes pictorial representations of events in sacred 

 history, of legends of saints, or of single figures of saints, and of sacred 

 allegories. Under this head may be placed most of the mural paintings and 

 the work upon the screens. The second class comprises all purely decorative 

 ornamentation such as that which covers a certain number of church roofs 

 in the district in question, and which also adorns the upper divisions and 

 framework of the screens. 



It must be premised that the examples to be treated of are only to be 

 found in the churches, for outside of them painting practically did not exist. 



The pictorial representations of scriptural and other subjects on the walls 

 of the churches are often of the rudest character. There seldom appears to 

 be any definite scheme of arrangement, nor are the compositions always placed 

 within definite boundaries, but are often executed somewhat at random on any 

 convenient wall surface. The more ambitious attempts, however, are some- 

 times confined within bounding lines of simple bands of colour or of scroll 

 work, and in the later examples, in which the details become more realistic 

 both in figures and backgrounds, this is certainly the case. Taken as a whole, 

 from the point of view of art, the waU paintings of the Norfolk churches 

 leave much to be desired ; nevertheless, they are interesting for their narcetiy 

 the direct way in which they tell a story, and now and again for a certain 

 purity of line and delicacy of drawing, especially in the draperies of the 

 figures. Their value archaeologicallv, however, cannot be called in question. 



Traces of paintings have been found on the walls of over fifty churches 

 in Norfolk, but anyone who wishes to study those traces on the spot will, 

 in very many instances, be disappointed. The rage for so-called 'restora- 

 tion,* and the carelessness or misdirected zeal of incumbent or churchwarden. 



Besides information derived from personal observarion, the principal worb consulted for the following 

 account are Tke Arckatohgual Journal, vi. & xii., Korfilk Anbcttkgj ; Blomefield's Hist. efNerf.; J List of 

 Buildings in Great Britain and Inland having rr.ural and otktr painted decorations, iSc, issued by the Science and 

 Art Department, South Kensington, edited by C. E. Keyser, M.A., F.S.A., ed. 3, l8S3,and Emblems of Saints, 

 by the Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G., ed. 3, edited by the Rev. A. Jcisopp, D.D., (Xorf. and Norw. 

 Arch. Soc.). Information has also been obtained from the Sacrist rolls of Norwich Cathedral and from 

 the Dawson Turner Collection of drawings, &c., illustrating Blomefield's Hist, of Kerf. Add. MSS. B.M. 

 23024-23051. 



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