at this time inferior to those which it had produced a century be-
fore,--this being, without doubt, due to the devotion of all energies
to architectural constructions.

Scandinavia ^* and the other countries of the North stood, in ar-
tistic respects, upon a far lower level than England. As buildings
of wood continued to be erected during the entire Romanic epoch,
monumental painting was so neglected that for many centuries it
was unable to follow the advance made in other parts of Europe.
The excessively long and lean figures, with their brown flesh-tints
and cold, bright green, blue, and red draperies and backgrounds,
such as were introduced at a comparatively recent period into the
Church of Bjeresjo in Sweden, are rendered the more hideous and
corpse-like by their closed eyes. Compared with that of Central
Europe, the production of illuminated manuscripts was inconsidera-
ble in these countries, and their carvings distinctly show how im-
portant a feature of Northern ornamentation was the preference
for monstrous forms.

-439-