Mistakes were, of course, sometimes made by the early English decorators in their over-zealous application of colour, when, for example, they painted over some of the finest workmanship in carved stone as well as some of the costly materials. As instances of such mistakes, it may be mentioned that the black marble shafts in the choir of Rochester Cathedral showed traces of their having been at one time painted red; the beautiful white marble monument of Archbishop Walter Gray in York Minster was at one time painted in various colours, and the shrine of St. Alban, in St. Alban’s Cathedral, though of Purbeck marble, is painted blue and green, the traceries and mullions being gilded.
The character and motives of the decorative patterns were interesting and diversified. A common treatment of the wall spaces between bands, and panels which contained pictorial decoration, consisted in the painting of a simple masonry pattern where double lines of red or yellow were drawn horizontally and vertically, so as to form rectangular spaces which corresponded to the joints of the wall, and in the centre of each oblong there was usually placed a circular flower form. Diapers and checkered patterns were used very much to fill wall spaces and panelling. The diapers were sometimes sparsely arranged, when they would then appear as sprig-like forms, “powdered,” or “sprinkled” at regulated intervals: these were known as “open” diapers; but when the diaper forms were more elaborate and important, and fitted closer together, they were called “close” diapers. The latter variety of diaper pattern was generally copied from the elaborate designs which decorated the rich Florentine and Sicilian silks of woven damask. These damask silks were used as hangings and for sumptuous dress materials, and may be seen represented as such in many of the Italian and Flemish paintings of the fourteenth and fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Examples of the open diapers or powderings may be seen on the backgrounds of the panel paintings on the East Anglian screens, and the more elaborate, close diapers appear on the richly decorated dresses of the figures (Plates [4], [25-27], [28]).
In the latter important class of diaper the pattern is often made up of such details as conventional animals, birds, flowers, foliage, ornament and fruit, such as the pomegranate and pine-apple, all cleverly arranged to make repeating patterns, these patterns being later developments of those found in the older Siculo-Arabian silks and Byzantine silk tapestries (Plates [25-27]), hence the oriental character of this class of ornament.
Various devices, heraldic and otherwise, and emblems, were sometimes superimposed over the central parts of diapered walls and ceilings, and
To face p. 125.]
[By permission.
Plate 31.—Portion of Ceiling Decoration: Choir of St. Albans Abbey.