Likewise, all the details of the dresses are minutely painted. The robes of Richard and of Edmund the Martyr are beautiful examples of the careful and painstaking work characteristic of the Middle Ages. No medieval painter spared himself trouble. Although he had not mastered the art of drawing the figure, he had learnt how to paint jewellery and stuffs beautifully, and delighted in doing it. The drawing of the figures you can see to be imperfect, yet nothing could be sweeter in feeling than the bevy of girl angels with roses in their hair surrounding the Virgin. Most of them are not unlike English girls of the present day, and the critics who say that this picture must have been painted by a Frenchman may be asked where he is likely to have found these English models for his angels. Possibly the face of Richard himself may have been painted from life, for the features correspond closely enough with the large full-face portrait of him in Westminster Abbey, and with the sculptured figure upon his tomb. He certainly does not look like a child of ten, for his state robes and crown give him a grown-up appearance. But if you regard the face carefully you can see that it is still that of a child. The gold background in the original shines out brilliantly, for after the gold was laid on, it was polished with an agate, which gives it a burnished effect, and then the little patterns were carefully punched so as not to pierce the gold and thereby expose the white ground beneath. There is a jewel-like quality in the colour such as you can see in manuscripts of the time, and it is possible that the painter may have learned his art as an illuminator of manuscripts. Artists in those days seldom confined themselves to one kind of work. We do not know this man's name, and are not even certain whether he was French or English. Before, as in the time of Richard, painting had been mainly a decorative art, and the object of making pictures was to adorn the pages of a book, or the walls and vaults of a building. The most vital artistic energies of Western Europe in the thirteenth century had gone into the building of the great cathedrals and abbeys, which are to-day the glory of that period. Most medieval paintings that still exist in England are decorative wall-paintings of this kind, and only traces of a few remain. In many country places you can see poor and faded vestiges of painting which adorned church walls in the thirteenth century, and occasionally you may come upon a bit by some chance better preserved. These old wall-paintings were done upon the dry plaster. The discovery, or rather the revival, of 'fresco' painting (that is, of painting done upon the wet surface of freshly plastered walls, a more durable process) was made in Italy and did not penetrate to England.