ese guilds became
powerful organizations; they had definite rights and duties, and even
judicial authority as to such matters as belonged to their special trades.

All this led to much greater individuality among artists than had ever
existed before: it came to be understood that a painter could, and had a
right to, paint a picture as he wished, and was not governed by any
priestly law. Religious subjects were still painted more frequently than
others, and the decoration of religious edifices was the chief employment
of the artists; but they worked with more independence of thought and
spirit. The painters studied more from nature, and though the change was
very slow, it is still true that a certain softness of effect, an easy
flow of drapery, and a new grace of pose did appear, and about A.D. 1350 a
new idea of the uses and aims of painting influenced artists everywhere.

[Illustration: FIG. 24.--BIRTH OF THE VIRGIN. _From the Grandes Heures of
the Duc de Berri._]

About that time they attempted to represent distances, and to create
different planes in their works; to reproduce such things as they
represented far more exactly than they had done before, and to put them in
just relations to surrounding places and objects; in a word, they seemed
to awake to an appreciation of the true office of painting and to its
infinite possibilities.

During this Gothic period some of the most exquisite manuscripts were made
in France and Germany, and they are now the choicest treasures of their
kind in various European collections.

Fig. 24, of the birth of the Virgin Mary, is from one of the most splendid
books of the time which was painted for the Duke de Berry and called the
Great Book of the Hours. The wealth of ornament in the border is a
characteristic of the French miniatures of the time. The Germans used a
simpler style, as you will see by Fig. 25, of the Annunciation.

The influence of the Gothic order of architecture upon glass-painting was
very pronounced. Under this order the windows became much more important
than they had been, and it was not unusual to see a series of windows
painted in such pictures as illustrated the whole teaching of the
doctrines of the church. It was at this time that the custom arose of
donating memorial windows to religious edifices. Sometimes they were the
gift of a person or a family, and the portraits of the donors were painted
in the lower part of the window, and usually in a kneeling p