At this time, and even later, up to the end of the seventeenth century, many Italian, French, and Flemish artists were invited to this country by the English king, and many others were attracted to England owing to the demand for decorated work. Although there were a good number of native artists and decorators working throughout the country, there were also a considerable number of foreign artists who, generally speaking, belonged to some of the religious orders, and who travelled about and decorated many churches and secular edifices in England. It may be mentioned that much of the artistic decoration, painted by the foreign artist-monks, consisted of copies of miniature paintings from illuminated manuscripts.
The great immigration of these foreign painters, decorators, and stained-glass craftsmen, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, served to arouse a healthy competition between themselves and the native English decorators and craftsmen, and a great improvement took place in the work of the native artists, although the best work has generally been ascribed to the foreign painters.
It is difficult to realise to what extent the churches and secular buildings were coloured and decorated in the centuries named in England; but we have sufficient proofs from the remains of the colouring that still exists, as well as from documentary evidence, that the walls, ceilings, piers, arches, capitals and mouldings of church interiors, whether the materials were of stone, wood, or plaster, were all richly coloured and gilt, so that from floor to roof the churches of medieval England glowed in schemes of solemn splendour of colour and gold, the whole effect being assisted by the additional colour harmony of the stained glass windows.
At the present time the interiors of most of these old churches are bereft of their former glory of colour, this being due to centuries of neglect, and perhaps vandalism. Some of them have, certainly, a spotty bit of colour and decoration at the east end, and occasionally a few coloured glass windows. It is only in a rare instance that one of these old churches is treated anew in a full and finished scheme of decorated colouring; the majority still keep to their fashionable whitewash, with a few spots of colour dotted about; their former beauty has ceased to remain to them, and nobody at present seems interested enough to make a serious attempt to bring it back.
Some critics strongly assert and argue that these old churches and other ancient edifices should not be restored, either to the former glory of coloured decoration or in their structural features. One critic follows another by repeating the arguments of his predecessor in art criticism, namely, that old buildings should be permitted to crumble slowly into decay, ruin, and nothingness, and also, that you cannot restore anything that does not exist. These arguments would appear logical enough when applied to the case of structures that are already so far ruined that they cannot be used for the purposes for which they were built, but if an edifice, though hoary with age and weather-worn by stress and storm, is yet sufficiently solid and sound to be used, as in the early days of its prime and beauty, there is absolutely no reason why it should not be carefully and lovingly restored, or repaired where necessary, both in its structural parts and in its colour decoration, so long as it can still be used for the performance of the duties or the fulfilment of such functions as those to which it was originally dedicated.
The best examples of coloured decoration in England, of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is found in the East Anglian churches, chiefly in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, though in the west and southern midland counties the decoration of churches received great attention at this time, but it was inferior to the work done in East Anglia. Several reasons to account for this superiority of the East Anglian art have been given, the principal one being that at the time of the greatest activity in church decoration in the eastern counties, these parts of the country were in a very prosperous condition, owing to the flourishing state of their cloth and wool trade, and the close connection of East Anglia in intercourse and trade with Flanders. In the fourteenth century Edward III, in 1328, brought over many Flemish weavers to Norfolk, and during the following century and afterwards many Flemish and German painters and decorators doubtless came across to this part of England, and obtained employment in the decoration of churches.
It has also been suggested that the superior quality and quantity of decorative painting in East Anglia was due to the greater use of wood for church fittings, especially oak, in this part of the country, and the scarcity of stone. There was a cheap and plentiful supply of wood in Norfolk and Suffolk, but the only kind of stone was flint, of which the churches were mostly built. Wood, therefore, and the plastered walls, suggested painting, more so than stone, which was more used in the building of churches in other parts of England. Accordingly we find that the rood-screens, and other
PLATE XXVIII