English Medieval Wall Painting
The Thirteenth Century

By E. W. Tristram (Oxford University Press).

This Work follows a similar one on the Twelfth Century, published in 1944. The present work is in two volumes, one for text and one for illustrations, and they are ‘volumes’ with a real medieval flavour in their bulk. Most of the illustrations are from Collotypes of Tristram's drawings, beautiful drawings that capture completely the spirit of the Middle Ages, drawings that must have inspired Bawden, Ravilious and many other brilliant students of Professor Tristram.

It is fitting that English art of the 13th Century should be worthily recorded. So much of this glorious period was destroyed during the Reformation that only a lifetime of research, such as E. W. Tristram has devoted to the task, can reveal the beauties that might have been preserved for us. It was a period when native English Art exercised a very considerable influence on Continental work; when it enjoyed a prestige that was shattered and remained dormant till the coming of Hogarth and the great portrait and landscape painters.

The text is fluent, scholarly and teeming with interest without being ‘popular’. We are reminded that Chaucer was appointed Clerk of the King's Works at Westminster by Richard II and that he referred in his poems to the art and artists of his day. In the ‘Knight's Table’ we have:

‘First on the wal was peynted a foreste
In which ther dwelleth neither man ne beste,
With knotty knarry bareyn trees olde
Of stubbes sharp and hideous to biholde.’

So that the tree stumps and driftwood motif is not so very novel after all! In fact Chaucer might easily have suggested Paul Nash's ‘Monster Field’. There is no doubt that since William Morris many artists have found inspiration in the Medieval. Tristram's volumes certainly open the door.

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