Medieval churches glowed with the colours of painted walls, altarpieces, and screens. Although much of this art has been lost, enough survives to illuminate this fascinating account of the methods and motivation of the medieval painter.

Within the Church, the painters worked to illustrate doctrine as well as to beautify God's house, but as the medieval economy prospered they translated their skills to the adornment of domestic architecture too. Combining documentary evidence with a study of surviving paintings, the author is able to reconstruct in detail the processes involved in creating the works of art. He also examines who the painters were, how they chose their images, and the social and economic background to their creativity.