MEDIAEVAL PAINTING 



inscription, now destroyed. What is left appears to read intima p 



The third and last roundel represents a clerk and a layman seated, one at 

 each end of a table. The clerk is habited in white, the layman in green 

 tunic and purple hose, purple being also the colour of the table. The clerk 

 appears to be handing over a number of silver coins, which the other is 

 counting. 



The subjects of these paintings are doubtful, owing to their very fragmen- 

 tary condition. It may be guessed, however, that the centre of each 

 compartment of the vaulting had a group of two figures with other groups 

 in each of the angles. The colouring of these paintings is rather gaudy, 

 and the reds and yellows usually associated with work of the twelfth 

 century are here replaced by crude greens. It might almost be imagined 

 that the paintings were the work of one more accustomed to glass than wall 

 painting. The flesh tones of the figures are cadaverous, with the usual 

 abrupt application of the high lights characteristic of the painting of the 

 time. The colours are solidly applied on a coarse sandy friable plaster with 

 much hair in it. 



The paintings just described are not the only specimens of the art of 

 the twelfth century to be found in the cathedral church of the diocese. The 

 whole of the quire and its aisles and appended chapels, and possibly even the 

 transepts, were adorned in this period, not with figure painting but with 

 a simple yet effective scheme of ornamentation, traces of which may still 

 be detected in various places. The whole of the walls and vaulting of the 

 aisles was coloured a broken white, on which was painted a diaper of a simple 

 masonry pattern, covering all the surfaces with a net-work of lines in black 

 and red. The broad transverse arches between each bay of the vaulting 

 of the aisles were edged with a vandyked pattern in red, and the 

 arrises formed by the intersections of the vaulting were covered in alter- 

 nate bays with a broad band of grey with vandyked borders of black, 

 and with a yellov/ band imitating marble with a vandyked border of dark 

 red. At the crowns of the vaulting geometrical figures were placed ; in 

 one instance there is a quatrefoil enclosing foliage in blackish green on a white 

 ground, in another the Holy Lamb is painted. These details, however, have 

 rather the look of a later addition to the earlier scheme of ornament. The 

 mouldings and capitals of the wall-arcading of the lateral chapels of the apse, 

 and probably those of the aisles of the quire, were fully coloured. Traces of 

 such colouring were visible enough in 1875, but have faded or almost dis- 

 appeared since that date. When freed from the yellow wash which had 

 covered them for ages the following colour arrangement could be made out 

 on this arcading. The face of the string-course over the arches had originally 

 been painted a slaty blue with roundels of white at frequent intervals ; each 

 roundel containing a centre spot of brilliant orange red. The chamfer be- 

 neath this face showed a vandyked border of white and chocolate colour. In 

 the centre of each spandril was a large six-leaved flower of a brilliant orange 

 red with a white centre, while the cushion capitals of the shafts had a half 

 flower of the same colour on their vertical faces, the ground being bordered 

 by a line of slaty blue. The necking of each capital was also of a brilliant 

 red, and the chamfer of each abacus vandyked alternately in blue and chocolate. 

 The roll moulding of the arches of the arcade showed a dull greenish blue 



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