Celtic Ornament

Celtic Ornament, a peculiar development of the system of iron-age decoration prevalent in the British Isles. Its history is divided into two periods by the introduction of Christianity, which engrafted on the older style a number of new elements of decoration brought into the country with the manuscripts of the gospels and psalters, and supplied new forms for the display of these elements, such as churches and crosses, shrines, bells, and crossiers. In its pre-Christian stages, ranging approximately from two or three centuries before the Christian era to about the end of the 6th century A.D., it appears principally in connection with the metal mountings of harness and horse-trappings, and on shields, sword-sheaths, mirrors, armlets, and other articles of personal use and ornament. The material is usually bronze, but occasionally silver or gold. The principal characteristics of the pre-Christian style are its preference for elliptical curves and divergent spirals; its use of chased or engraved lines or dots as a diaper in the spaces of the general design in contrast with other spaces left plain; its use of repoussé work, sometimes in very high relief, at other times in low relief on thin plates riveted on in their places in the general design; the production of peculiar patterns often in excessively high relief in the casting; and the employment of champ-levé enamels of red, yellow, blue, and green, and settings of coloured vitreous pastes. One of the finest examples of such settings occurs in the decoration of an oval shield of bronze, from the bed of the Thames, ornamented with Celtic patterns in relief, enriched by twenty-seven settings of red enamel, kept in their places by small cruciform ornaments of bronze riveted in the centre of each. There are to be seen in the National Museums of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin enamelled shields, sword-sheaths, and ornaments of horse-trappings in bronze, of great beauty and excellence both of design and workmanship, and other articles in bronze, silver, or gold, ornamented in repoussé work or in relief, with or without enamel as an enrichment, found in many parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, in pagan grave-mounds, in crannogs or lake-dwellings, in earth-houses, in the beds of lakes and rivers, or in casual deposits under the soil for concealment. In a work entitled Horæ Ferales, Mr Franks of the British Museum has figured in colours many of the best of these remarkable products of the earliest known process of champ-levé enamelling, and adduced evidence to show that it and this peculiar style of Celtic ornament which accompanies it were of indigenous origin, and at this early period peculiar to the British Isles. The remarkable development of Celtic ornament which succeeded the introduction of Christianity was characterised by the association of interlaced work and fretwork with the elliptical curves and divergent spirals which up to that time had been the principal elements of Celtic design. To these were occasionally added a step-like pattern, and diapers of the Z and I shaped patterns sometimes seen in Chinese decoration. The interlaced work was elaborated with excessive care into patterns, presenting an infinite variety of combinations pleasing to the eye, and capable of being harmoniously treated in colours. It was sometimes a simple ribbon-like band, which might be plain, or divided in the middle, or divided into three by lines close to the margin; or the inter- lacing band might be replaced by an elongated animal form with its feet, its tail, and its top-knot drawn out to interlace with each other, and with the corresponding parts of other lacertine forms, the whole forming a diaper of quaintly expressed and complicated construction. The fretwork was also elaborated with much ingenuity into most complicated patterns, a special feature of the style being its partiality for diagonal frets and patterns produced by combinations of oblique lines, in direct contrast to the fretwork of Greek and Roman art, which was essentially rectangular. The elliptical curves and divergent spirals of the older style, which had received their only expression in the solid forms proper to metal-work, were found to be equally capable of adaptation to the purposes of the illuminator, and by a similar process of combination and elaboration they also produced patterns and diapers of inexhaustible variety and beauty. A special feature of Celtic decoration was its tendency to divide the surface to be decorated into a series of panels, each of which was treated as a separate whole. The finest examples of Celtic ornament are unquestionably to be found in the grandly illuminated pages of manuscript copies of the Gospels, from the 7th to the 9th century. Of these the most famous for the elaborate nature of their ornament and the beauty of their colouring are the Book of Kells in Trinity College, Dublin, and the Lindisfarne Gospels in the British Museum. Of enamelled metal-work in this period there may be mentioned the Ardagh Chalice, perhaps the most elaborate and beautiful of all the products of Celtic art, the Lismore Crossier, and the Monymusk Shrine. Examples of filigree-work, and chasing or engraving in gold and silver of the highest excellence are found in the Tara Brooch, the Ardagh Brooches, the Rogart Brooches, and the Hunterston Brooch, the Shrine of St Patrick's Bell, the Shrine of St Manchan, and the Cross of Cong. The approximate dates of the metal-work of the highest excellence range from the 10th to the 12th century. For sculpture in stone it is only necessary to refer generally to the incised slabs and sculptured crosses of Scotland and Ireland, ranging from the 9th to the 12th centuries, the special characteristics of their decoration being the same as those of the manuscripts and metal-work already mentioned. For illustrations, see BROOCH, CROSS, SCULPTURED STONES. See further Kemble's Horæ Ferales, edited by Latham and Franks (1863); Anderson's Scotland in Early Christian and Pagan Times (1881-83); Westwood's Palæographia Sacra Pictoria (1845), and Fac-similes of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (1868); O'Neill's Fine Arts of Ancient Ireland (1863), and Sculptured Crosses of Ancient Ireland (1857); Stuart's Sculptured Stones of Scotland (Spalding Club, 1856 and 1867); and Miss Stokes's Early Christian Art in Ireland (1887), and Six Months in the Apennines (1892), in which last work Celtic Christian art is largely derived from the Byzantine art of Italy.