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Celtic Art
Of
The Middle Ages
The style of ornamentation came about by medieval tribes in central Europe. Archaic examples date from around 450 BC masks and brooches in bronze work with gradually more sophisticated geometric patterns, animal and floral motifs, and in time, realistic human- head designs. The most intricate jewelry, decorated swords, and scabbards. In Britain, Celtic craftsmanship flourished all over the Roman livelihood, producing work in gold and silver, shields of inlaid enamel, and bronze mirrors. Afterward, Christian monks tailored long-established designs to embellish religious manuscripts.
When we speak of 'Celts' today, we mean people who lived on the vastly western edges of Europe, in Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Brittany. The word comes from Keltoi; the term, which the Greek authors of the 5th century BC and later, gave the native people of Western Europe from Spain to Czechoslovakia. The Celts expanded into Britain, Northern Italy, and parts of Asian Turkey as well; they found themselves not as one people, but as different tribes.
Celtic art has its birth in the sculpture, carving and metalwork of the ancient Celtic peoples who dominated Continental Europe and the British Isles from about of 1000 BC and beyond prior to becoming inundated in the growing Roman Empire. Only in Britain and Ireland did the Celtic way of life continue to exist.
The art of the primordial Irish and Britons was also profoundly affected by the art of the peoples with whom they came into contact, the Picts (the pre- Celtic inhabitants of Britain) and later Norse and Anglo- Saxon settlers. In spite of this, conventional Celtic art as we know it is very much a creation of the escalation of Christianity in Early Britain and Ireland when the native styles pooled in a spectacular fashion with Mediterranean influences brought in by Christian missionaries. The product was masterpieces like the illuminated Gospels such as the Book of Kells and the Book of Lindisfarne.
The Book of Kells and the Book of Lindisfarne are both Gospel manuscripts created by Irish monks in approximately th century A.D. somewhere in the British Isles. The attention to the lettering that was a transitional step between Roman Capitals and lower case lettering and illumination; make these the best surviving examples of illuminated manuscripts.
To comprehend and value fully the art of the Celts, it is essential to understand the distinction flanked by two fundamentally different styles of artistic expression.
One is what is called naturalistic art- art that attempts to symbolize or to replicate what is seen in nature. The other is abstract or geometric art. It imitates nothing; it constructs ornate designs by means of a gratifying grouping of flowing lines and decorative patterns. It is full of fancy and minds eye, and depends in a distinctive way on a keen sense of rhythm, balance and proportion.
Three of the major design rudiments of Celtic geometric art are knotworks, spirals and key patterns. Knotwork symbolized the interconnection of life and humankind's place within the universe. This symbolism is important because it stems from the Celts being Druidic nature worshippers that believed that everything in nature was connected and interdependent. Knotwork came astonishingly late to Celtic art, it is believed they were introduced from Coptic Christian manuscripts which were also a key foundation of inspiration for early Islamic art. Characteristic features of Celtic knotworks are the use of rounded edges and attempting to make the knotwork one nonstop line. Frequent knots comprise the Trinity knot, representing the Holy Trinity, and the lover's knot, representing two together as one.
Spirals typically mirror personal spirit, and an individual's attainment of balance and in the inner consciousness and outer self, they are believed to represent the life- force. Spirals may also represent the cosmos, heavens, and water (waves). Spirals are one of the eldest design elements in Celtic art dating right back to the most primitive times. Very typical of Celtic spirals is the -pronged spiral, or triskele and many more elaborate spirals are derived from this essential pattern. The number three was of profound worth in Pagan Celtic Religion.
Key patterns have been described as spirals in a straight line. Key patterns are also instituted in Mediterranean art. Typical of Celtic key pattern is the use of the 45-degree angle so that the pattern is made up of triangle shapes.
Later Celtic art made great use of calligraphy and adorned initial capital letters. The greatest work of art from the Celtic tradition is the illuminated manuscripts, which are essentially masterpieces of calligraphy. Letters were twisted into extraordinary shapes, and bejeweled with designs, colors and patterns.
Even though Celtic art has the distinction of incorporating many forms and diverse influences, depending on the locality of the artist, there is definite similarity that is communal in much of the art the Celts produced. Perhaps the most apparent is the love of zoomorphic, or animal forms. The Celts tended to envision many of their deities in the guise of animals, either as hybrids (such as the god Cernunnos, who possessed the antlers of a stag), or as gods who took on the form of an animal for some purpose or another. Examples of zoomorphic usage are hounds- loyalty, lions- nobility and strength, snakes- rebirth (dragon or serpent designs may be interpreted the same as snakes), birds- purity (peacocks), or nobility (eagles), salmon- knowledge, bull- strength, and, boar- ferocity, strength.
As Christianity spread through out the world, especially the Celtic world, it absorbed much of the Celtic culture and style. However, before the Christian cross existed, the Celtic cross, which is much older and can be dated back to 10,000 B.C.E., as established by crosses that were found engraved or painted on flat pebbles in a cave in France. Their strong belief in nature is symbolized in the cross as the four roads that lead to the four corners of the earth Air, Water, Wind, and Fire. The center of the cross represented the center of the world body as a place where we find all the forces of life.
Mother Earth is well represented in another important Celtic art form, The Celtic Tree of Life. The Celtic Tree of Life serves to show that it is the sum of the equation in the creation of life and always includes the seven created beings in the Celtic world, which are plants, insects, fish, reptiles, birds, animals, and man. The tree of life displays intricate interweaves that grow in a logical pattern and stem from one location. Even though they all stem from one location, the interweaves are typical of knotwork as they show no beginning and no end.
There are numerous schools of thought as far as knots and symbolism go in Celtic artwork. Various people say that the symbols have no bona fide importance and just served as decoration. Others, including myself, believe that some of the common knots and icons did indeed have certain meaning or connotations. Regrettably, today, it is near impossible for us to acquire what those meanings were. (Too many lost generations of teachers). Granted, there were many different tribes of Celtic peoples who had different interpretations and that is one of the mysteries of this culture that I love.
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