MEDIAEVAL PAINTING Mayor of Norwich in 1451, and it is probable that at the time the screen was painted, the roof may have received its ornamentation. It may therefore possibly date about the middle of the fifteenth century. The second instance is that of the nave roof of Knapton, previously noted. This roof is known to have been 'erected by one John Smythe in the year 1503,' the colouring doubtless being added shortly after. Blomefield gives the following curious facts respecting the roof of the nave of Garboldisham Church, a church long since fallen into ruin. He says, it was boarded and painted all over with the names of Jesus and Mary, and this in the midst : — ' Betwex syn yis and Ye Rode Loff ye yongling Han payd for yis cost,' etc.^ Unfortunately no date remained. But enough has been said with respect to these painted roofs, and we must now return to the screens to consider the system of colouring employed upon them and of various details connected with this subject. Without very full illustrations and of some size, it is difficult to give an idea of the effect of much of the work treated of, yet this account could scarcely be considered complete unless such an endeavour were made. Generally speaking, then, the aspect of the ranges of panel paintings which form the principal part of the Norfolk screens is governed by the colours employed in the grounds on which the figures are executed. As a rule the alternate panels were painted a full red and a deep green, and this background simulated a flat tapestry hanging, without folds, often powdered with conventional flowers in white and gold. A narrow band, sometimes of gesso gilt, drawn across the panel at the line of the springing of the traceried head served as a border to this tapestry, and the space above it, edged by the cusping of the tracery, was of a different colour ; for instance, if the tapestry background were red the space above would be green, and vice versS. Some- times, though rarely, it is blue or black. Occasionally, figures of angels were painted on this space as if holding up the tapestry hanging beneath. In the more elaborate screens colour is exchanged for gilt gesso work. Not infre- quently the under robes of the figures painted upon them represent cloth of gold covered with the richest patterns in black or red line. The tints of the draperies, however, of most of the figures belong to the secondary or tertiary order. Blue is by no means commonly to be found. Out of twelve or sixteen effigies upon the panels of a screen, two or three at most may show this colour more or less conspicuously, and now and again it seems to have been employed in the heads of panels, or upon moulded work. Perhaps red gives the predominant note in most of the screens, and looking at them as masses of colour, a decided difference of effect is perceptible between the work of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and that of the fourteenth century, as for example, in the Norwich retable, previously described, in which the primaries are distinctly the prominent colours. This follows a well-known law, that the earlier the work the more the primaries are employed. With respect to the figures themselves, the draperies are fairly well arranged, more especially in those of the sixteenth century. The drawing of the extremities, 1 Blomefield, Hist. ofNorf. (1805), i. 268. 549
