Also that instead of
the invariable lozenging or diapering of the background he occasionally
makes a background of plain burnished gold. And as if to prove that his
predecessors were really hampered with the restrictions imposed by their
imitations of painted glass, he begins to try his best to paint up his
miniatures into real pictures with high lights on draperies and shading
upon the folds. A certain amount of flatness, however, still remains,
but it scarcely seems to have been the intention or aim of the painter.
There is a similar flatness in the work of all the early schools of
painting, which had no reference whatever to the destination of the
picture. See, for instance, the Origny Treasure Book in the Print Room
at Berlin (MS. 38), and the Life of St. Denis in the National Library at
Paris (Nos. 2090-2), both MSS. dating somewhere about 1315. The drapery
shading in the latter MS. is no longer the work of the pen, but
brush-work in proper colour. The Westreenen Missal in the Museum at the
Hague, which dates about 1365, though not a French MS., is an example of
the fact that by the middle of the century the tradition of penwork
outline and flat-colouring had become pretty nearly obsolete.
The reign of the afflicted Charles VI.
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