MEDIAEVAL PAINTING 



rich fur-trimmed robe and peculiar headdress, who proffers a posy of flowers 

 to the male skeleton. Above and between the figures are scrolls with the 

 inscription in rhymed lines, Natus homo muliere brevi tempore parvo. Nunc est^ 

 nunc fjon est, quasi Jios crescit in arvo. The second picture represents the 

 interior of a church. In the foreground is a tomb from which rises a corpse. 

 The shroud fastened over its head hangs loosely about it. The right hand 

 points to a font in the background, over which on a scroll are the words 

 De utere. Upon another scroll proceeding from the mouth of the figure is 

 inscribed ^wj^-OT quasi non essem, and yet another, held in its left hand, bears 

 part of a sentence, translatus ad tumulum job lo, the various inscriptions 

 making up the nineteenth verse of the tenth chapter of Job. 



The two compositions have been called part of a ' Dance of Death,' but 

 they do not resemble in any way those of the Danse Macabre. They were 

 meant doubtless to enforce the teaching so common in the middle ages of the 

 vanity of all earthly things, and of the all-conquering and resistless power of 

 death. No other example of this class has been found, it is believed, on the 

 screen panels of Norfolk churches, but the same moral was enforced by the 

 late fourteenth-century wall paintings of the Church of Wickhampton, where 

 the legend of ' Les Trois Vifs et les trois Morts ' was represented. It was 

 found again upon the walls of the Church of Belton, which, though in Suffolk, 

 is close to the Norfolk border. The prevalence of this setting forth of man's 

 mortality may be seen in many monuments of noted families in English 

 churches, where, beneath the effigy arrayed as in life, the shrouded figure of 

 the personage above lies extended in the tomb. 



Subjects as distinguished from single figures are, if anything, indicative 

 of work of the sixteenth century, and the paintings mentioned at Tacolneston, 

 perhaps, and those at Loddon certainly, are of especial interest on this account. 

 The screen paintings at Loddon, though battered, partly scrubbed out, and in 

 some cases perhaps only partly finished, show, in the realistic treatment of the 

 groups of figures and in the backgrounds, a great advance upon the single 

 figures on purely conventional grounds. Such of the subjects as can be made 

 out portray the martyrdom of St. William of Norwich (Plate vii.), the Annun- 

 ciation, the Presentation in the Temple, the Circumcision, the Adoration 

 of the Three Kings, and the Ascension. Figures, too, of this century painted 

 on vellum or on paper and glued over older work are to be found, notably 

 on some panels of the Cawston screen and on that at Gateley. They are 

 superior from an artistic point of view to the paintings they have superseded. 



Some, perhaps many, screens have received only a purely decorative 

 treatment, the panels being covered by patterns ranging from a simple 

 sprinkling of golden flowers on coloured grounds to elaborate diapers copying 

 the fine woven tissues of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ^ brought from 

 the Low Countries. Into this branch of decorative work it is impossible to 

 enter from lack of space, but the division which comprises the painted roofs 

 cannot be completely passed over, the colouring of the elaborate roofs of the 

 Norfolk churches requiring at least a passing mention. Omitting any 

 description of the font covers, the pulpits, occasionally adorned with painted 

 figures, and other furniture of the churches in the county, all more or less 

 painted and gilt, we can deal here only with the roof paintings. These fall 



1 A fine example of this purely decorative treatment may be seen on the screen at Great Massingham. 



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