ZANTINE ART continue the story, while, for Egypt, the long sub section, Archaeology and Art of the article EGYPT should be studied. The article ART itself treats in a general way of many aspects of Painting : and for Oriental Painting the student should consult INDIAN AND SINHALESE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY, CHINESE PAINTING (and the sections Ornamentation and Aesthetic De velopment in the article CHINA), and a number of the articles listed under the heading JAPANESE ART.
We here take up the story from the point where Painting had become definitely associated with Christianity (see ROMAN ART and BYZANTINE ART). (X.) Romanesque.—Romanesque painting, which from the begin ning of the I I th century developed in Western Europe beside architecture, was the inheritor of the Byzantine models. But, as far as we can judge from the little which now remains to us, the Italian, French and Rhenish artists, creators of types which are practically identical in each country, did as the Greeks in the earliest archaic times. Like the Greeks in relation to Egypt, they introduced life and movement, even in places a kind of wild and grimacing agitation, into the formulas coming to them from By zantium. The faults and oddities of this art, as we can see them in for example the frescoes of St. Savin, are of little importance; it lives; and from this life springs a long line of living descendants, which includes the generations of modern art.
Mediaeval.—The evolution of art in the I2th century would lead one to suppose that France would take the lead in painting as she had taken it in sculpture and architecture. But the develop ment of Gothic architecture, which is one of the greatest glories of France, had as a result the great reduction of the employment of painting. Sculpture flourished on Gothic portals and magnifi cently adorned the façades of churches; but where, in the interiors of these cathedrals whose aerial construction almost did away with walls and replaced them by tall windows, could painting have been placed? There resulted another French invention, the art of glass painting, which for nearly three centuries produced a series of masterpieces and took the place of monumental painting in those countries to which Gothic architecture spread.
On the other hand a school of miniaturists was founded in Paris. Through the medium of leaves of parchment it created an art which rivalled glass painting for beauty and richness of colour, and exhibited a freedom and flexibility, a curiosity about nature and a subtlety of expression which was beyond the technique of glass work. England also experienced this develop ment. (See STAINED GLASS ; ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS.)