Child, presenting his gift, whilst the other two stand
behind with theirs in their hands. The standing Kings and the kneeling
Richard in our picture, are grouped in just the same relation to the
divine Infant as the three Magi. The imitation of the type is clear.
There was a special reason for this, in that the birthday of Richard
fell upon January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, when the Wise Men did
homage to the Babe. The picture, by reminding us of the three Wise
Men, commemorated the birthday of the King as well as his coronation,
the two chief dates of his life.

You have some idea now of the train of thought which this
fourteenth-century painter endeavoured to express in his picture
commemorative of the coronation of a King. A medieval coronation was
a very solemn ceremony indeed, and the picture had to be a serious
expression of the great traditions of the throne of England, suggested
by the figures of St. Edward and St. Edmund, and of hope for future
good to the realm, to ensue from the blessings of the Virgin and Child
upon the young King. Religious feeling is dominant in this picture,
and if from it you could turn to others of like date, you would find
the same to be true. The meaning was the main thing thought of. When
Giotto painted his scenes from the life of St. Francis, his first aim
was that the stories should be well told and easily grasped by all
who looked at them. Their beauty was of less importance. This
difference between the aim of art in the Middle Ages and in our own
day is fundamental. If you begin by picking to pieces the pictures
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries because the drawing is bad,
the colouring crude, and the grouping unnatural, you might as well
never look at them at all. Putting faults and old fashions aside to
think of the meaning of the picture, we shall often be rewarded by
finding a soul within, and the work may affect us powerfully,
notwithstanding its simple forms and few strong colours.

Nevertheless, after the painter had planned his picture so as to convey
its message and meaning, he did try to make it beautiful to look upon,
and he often succeeded. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
it was beauty of outline and a pleasant patching together of bright
colours for which the painters strove, both in pictures and in
manuscripts. If you think of this picture for a moment as a coloured
pattern, you will see how pretty it is. The blue wings against the
gold bac