paintings made to decorate their walls. They
employed many sculptors and goldsmiths, and all gave each other as
presents works of art executed by their favourite artists. In the
British Museum there is a splendid gold and enamel cup that John, Duke
of Berry, caused to be made for his brother King Charles V.; to see
it would give you a good idea of the costliness and elaboration of
the finest work of that day. The courts of these four brothers were
centres of artistic production in all kinds--sculpture, metal-work,
tapestries, illuminated manuscripts and pictures, and there was a
strong spirit of rivalry among the artists to see who could make the
loveliest things, and among the patrons as to which could secure the
best artists in his service.

These four princes gave an important impulse to the production of
beautiful things in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, but it is needless
to burden you with the artists' names.

In the fourteenth century an artist was a workman who existed to do
well the work that was desired of him. He was not an independent man
with ideas of his own, who attempted to make a living by painting what
he thought beautiful, without reference to the ideas of a buyer. Of
course, if people prefer and buy good things when they see them, good
things will be likely to be made, but if those with money to spend
have no taste and buy bad things or order ugly things to be made, then
the men who had it in them to be great artists may die unnoticed, because
the beautiful things they could have made are not called for. To-day
many people spend something upon art and a few spend a great deal.
Let us hope we may not see too much of the money spent in creating
a demand for what is bad rather than for what is beautiful.

It was not unusual in the fourteenth century for a man to be at one
and the same time painter, illuminator, sculptor, metal-worker, and
designer of any object that might be called for. One of these many
gifted men, Andre Beauneveu of Valenciennes, a good sculptor and a
painter of some exquisite miniatures, is sometimes supposed to have
been the painter of our picture of Richard II. In the absence of any
signature or any definite record it is impossible to say who painted
it, but it is unnecessary to assume that it must have been painted
by a French artist, since we know that at the end of the fourteenth
century there were very good painters in England.

It was by no means an exception not to sign