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ART 497
robes, in which the fine pleating ofthe linen is exactly rendered
(PL 98 &). There are no foreign models that can be exactly set
beside them, though resemblances of course exist. It is a
curiously unified and English school, whose influence can be
seen in some of the tomb effigies of the time and in some
scattered figure/carvings; an influence which lies behind the
sculpture ofWestminster abbey, though here new and power/*
ful contacts with France came into play.
The work on the abbey, the new choir, the chapterhouse,
the crossing and transepts, was in progress between 1245 and
1269 and was contemporaneous with the building of the
Sainte Chapelle (1245-9) and the new choir of Amiens (c.
1240-69). Henry III and St. Louis were linked by marriage,
piety, mutual tastes, and rivalry. There can be little doubt that
the English king in his devoted patronage followed closely
the
styles and fashions ofFrance. Westminster was a great foyer
of all the arts. Some of its wall-paintings survive, and the In/
credulity of St. Thomas and the St. Christopher, where the
the most
figures are approximately nine feet high, are amongst
striking ofour surviving Gothic wall-paintings. Rediscovered
in 1936, they still have some of the brilliancy of their colour
contrasts, and the great curve of St. Thomas's arm is a piece of
genuine visual expressionism (PL 99 a). Some oftheir charac/
teristics recall the contemporary illumination ofthe St. Albans
School; they have the same curled hair and the exaggerated
sidelong glance ofthe eyes; the mannered elegance ofthe poses
is more French than English, but it is an elegance that was be/
ing rapidly assimilated by English artists. The Westminster retable
comes from the same artistic phase and, though much
damaged, is a striking example of the high quality of the fittings
of this sumptuous church. The mosaic paving of the
presbytery, still wonderfully intact, and the mosaic on the base
ofthe Confessor's shrine and Henry's own tomb are Cosmati
work by Italian craftsmen.
Henry's effigy was of bronze, cast in London by William
Torel in 1291-2. In the same years Torel had made the effigy of
Eleanor, wife ofEdward L This is a work ofgreat beauty. The