MEDIAEVAL PAINTING 



Mayor of Norwich in 1451, and it is probable that at the time the screen 

 was painted, the roof may have received its ornamentation. It may therefore 

 possibly date about the middle of the fifteenth century. The second instance 

 is that of the nave roof of Knapton, previously noted. This roof is known 

 to have been 'erected by one John Smythe in the year 1503,' the colouring 

 doubtless being added shortly after. Blomefield gives the following curious 

 facts respecting the roof of the nave of Garboldisham Church, a church 

 long since fallen into ruin. He says, it was boarded and painted all over 

 with the names of Jesus and Mary, and this in the midst : — 



' Betwex syn yis and 

 Ye Rode Loff ye yongling 

 Han payd for yis cost,' etc.^ 



Unfortunately no date remained. 



But enough has been said with respect to these painted roofs, and we 

 must now return to the screens to consider the system of colouring employed 

 upon them and of various details connected with this subject. Without very 

 full illustrations and of some size, it is difficult to give an idea of the effect of 

 much of the work treated of, yet this account could scarcely be considered 

 complete unless such an endeavour were made. 



Generally speaking, then, the aspect of the ranges of panel paintings 

 which form the principal part of the Norfolk screens is governed by the 

 colours employed in the grounds on which the figures are executed. As a 

 rule the alternate panels were painted a full red and a deep green, and this 

 background simulated a flat tapestry hanging, without folds, often powdered 

 with conventional flowers in white and gold. A narrow band, sometimes of 

 gesso gilt, drawn across the panel at the line of the springing of the traceried 

 head served as a border to this tapestry, and the space above it, edged by the 

 cusping of the tracery, was of a different colour ; for instance, if the tapestry 

 background were red the space above would be green, and vice versS. Some- 

 times, though rarely, it is blue or black. Occasionally, figures of angels were 

 painted on this space as if holding up the tapestry hanging beneath. In the 

 more elaborate screens colour is exchanged for gilt gesso work. Not infre- 

 quently the under robes of the figures painted upon them represent cloth of 

 gold covered with the richest patterns in black or red line. The tints of the 

 draperies, however, of most of the figures belong to the secondary or tertiary 

 order. Blue is by no means commonly to be found. Out of twelve or sixteen 

 effigies upon the panels of a screen, two or three at most may show this 

 colour more or less conspicuously, and now and again it seems to have been 

 employed in the heads of panels, or upon moulded work. Perhaps red gives 

 the predominant note in most of the screens, and looking at them as masses of 

 colour, a decided difference of effect is perceptible between the work of the 

 late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and that of the fourteenth century, 

 as for example, in the Norwich retable, previously described, in which the 

 primaries are distinctly the prominent colours. This follows a well-known 

 law, that the earlier the work the more the primaries are employed. With 

 respect to the figures themselves, the draperies are fairly well arranged, more 

 especially in those of the sixteenth century. The drawing of the extremities, 



1 Blomefield, Hist. ofNorf. (1805), i. 268. 

 549 



