CategoriesCultural and Religious Styles
Celtic Art
Swirling ornament of Iron Age Europe and early medieval Ireland and Britain, from La Tène metalwork to the Book of Kells.
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About
Celtic art names two related bodies of work: the art of Iron Age peoples across much of Europe, and the Christian art of early medieval Ireland and Britain that grew partly from it. The first flowered in the La Tène style from about 450 BC. Metalworkers took plant tendrils borrowed from Greek and Etruscan ornament and set them spinning into S-curves, triskeles and half-hidden faces. Look at the gold neck rings called torcs, bronze flagons inlaid with coral and enamel, and parade armour such as the Battersea Shield.
After the Roman period, Irish and Northumbrian monasteries combined those spirals with interlace and animal ornament. The Tara Brooch (about 700) and the Book of Kells (about 800) pack minute detail into small spaces, and stone high crosses carry the same patterns outdoors. A 19th-century revival, from copies of the Tara Brooch to Archibald Knox's silver and pewter for Liberty, made the style part of modern design.
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