In the British Museum there is a splendid gold and enamel cup that John, Duke of Berry, caused to be made for his brother King Charles V.; to see it would give you a good idea of the costliness and elaboration of the finest work of that day.

The courts of these four brothers were centres of artistic production in all kinds--sculpture, metal-work, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts and pictures, and there was a strong spirit of rivalry among the artists to see who could make the loveliest things, and among the patrons as to which could secure the best artists in his service.
These four princes gave an important impulse to the production of beautiful things in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, but it is needless to burden you with the artists' names.
In the fourteenth century an artist was a workman who existed to do well the work that was desired of him.

He was not an independent man with ideas of his own, who attempted to make a living by painting what he thought beautiful, without reference to the ideas of a buyer.

Of course, if people prefer and buy good things when they see them, good things will be likely to be made, but if those with money to spend have no taste and buy bad things or order ugly things to be made, then the men who had it in them to be great artists may die unnoticed, because the beautiful things they could have made are not called for.

To-day many people spend something upon art and a few spend a great deal.
Let us hope we may not see too much of the money spent in creating a demand for what is bad rather than for what is beautiful.
It was not unusual in the fourteenth century for a man to be at one and the same time painter, illuminator, sculptor, metal-worker, and designer of any object that might be called for.