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Celtic art |
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Celtic art |
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Although missionaries were sent to Ireland in the 5th century, Ireland was remote and isolated from European traditions. Thus, both Christian practices and Christian art there are a mixture of Celtic and later Anglo-Saxon concepts. The most spectacular artistic development occurs in manuscript illumination. The detail of the banner above, from the Book of Durrow, illustrates the Celtic use of the animal style and the interlaced motifs.
Book of Kells  end of 8th century |
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Chi Rho page
Named for the monastery in Ireland where this text of the Gospels was transcribed and illuminated, the Book of Kells is the most spectacularly decorated of any of the Celtic (or Hiberno-Saxon) manuscripts. Interlace, animals, "grotesques," and mysterious heads, abound in this page.
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Madonna and Child
Like the migratory people on the European continent, Celtic artists had no tradition for depicting the human figure, for indicating three-dimensional volume through modeling, or for orienting a figure in space. Development of this technique would soon appear in Carolingian manuscript illumination, however.) |
| Click here for more images from the Book of Kells. |
All images marked MAS were photographed on location by Mary Ann Sullivan. All other images were scanned from other sources or downloaded from the World Wide Web; they are posted on this password-protected site for educational purposes, at Bluffton College only, under the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law.