Irish Celtic art

Irish Celtic art demonstrates a remarkable continuity, which is certainly one of the most striking aspects of this intricate world art-form. For centuries, during the Early Middle Ages, Irish artists chiefly concerned, and explored the combination of abstract patterns according to very strict and elaborate rules. Influences from outside gave new impulses from time to time, but never altered very deeply the appearance and fundamental essence of Irish decoration. Only if we are aware that a long rich pagan tradition supplied the first elements and the essential decorative principles and foundation of the art which flourished in the monasteries after the fifth century, will we see the reason for this persistence of outlook.

Already in prehistoric times, during the megalithic period, Ireland had an art of remarkable quality such as the exquisitely carved spirals of the entrance/threshold stone of New Grange, as well as the great kerb stones of a sister mound, Knowth, both in the renowned Boyne Valley. But the civilization from which this art grew withered slowly into an indignant late Bronze Age which seems, in spite of a few additions to linger on without any significantly deep changes during part of the period which corresponds to the continental Iron Age.

Ireland will emerge, in the first texts concerning her, speaking a Celtic language and inhabited in part by people who bear Celtic names. But we do not know at what time the Celts first made their appearance in the country. One of the few fixed points in this incertitude is that the 'La Tene' civilization, that of the continental Celts during the second Iron Age, was introduced into Ireland during the centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ. It was during this period that one can glimpse the system that at first sight may seem purely mathematical, is in fact neither mechanical nor in-human. It constitutes a means of expression both precise and full of the freedom of movement, very close to music and dance and using, as music does, numeral elements as units which the human mind can organize. It represents and presents one of the greatest feats of abstract art, an abstract art which involves a profound use of geometry to display a great complexity in the construction of its intricate ornamentation and patterns. To anybody giving a cursory glance at the five centuries which precede the introduction of Christianity, it may seem that very little happens over the passing of all those years, that one just meets periodically some miscellaneous objects which display strikingly similar ornamentation, a somewhat poverty-stricken tangle of curves and spiral formations. In reality this is the time when this nature based infused art form which will be the very foundation and essential backbone of all the art of christian times is being slowly and systematically elaborated.

Ireland of the first four centuries A.D. is that of a country living in an unusual seclusion, on the fringe of the Roman Empire, but outside its iron grip, free to foster and develop the age-old prehistoric tradition which had been handed down to her. She did not have the Roman conceptions of law, state and organization imposed upon her sacred presence, nor the cold rectitude of Latin thought. She was to preserve to the Middle Ages a prehistoric fluidity of essence and mind. She was to be spared the violent clashes of opposed outlooks, the difficult adjustments which resulted in the Gallo-Roman and Brito-Roman civilizations. Unlike the other Celts, the Irish of the Roman period were not to be made ashamed of an old culture, they were not awkwardly to bend their minds nor knees to foreign ways of control and of thinking, they were not to be a colonized people. The Roman sense of order and discipline which remained the dream and aspiration of the once Romanized countries all through the Middle Ages, Ireland was only to ever know on a diluted second hand level. The transformation's undergone by Irish Pagan art when it had to adapt itself to the frame work of a Christian way of life, were established without any violent disturbance. Flexibility on the part of the Celts was the hallmark or secret of their successful expansions everywhere in Europe. The Irish seem to have accepted the new faith impulsively. The result was a peaceful compromise between the old Celtic tradition, which was not asked to die a violent death, and the new faith, the new ideal. and the new way, which in a short period changed the life of the country so deeply and gave it a new orientation. This is ultimately why the old Celtic art does not disappear with the coming of Christianity. Its coming did not entail the upsetting of the old social order. The Celtic tribal system remained the backvone of Irish society. The royal successions were still ruled by the same complicated methods. Many of the laws and customs of the pagan world persisted. The blending of the old and new ways was made easier by circumstances. With the coming of Saint Patrick it appeared as if Ireland was about to become part of the Roman world from a spiritual perspective and certainly new social customs would have been imposed. But at that very moment the Empire collapsed, swept in all directions by the Germanic invasions, and the conquest of England by the Saxons left the Christian communities of the West- Wales, Scotland, but particularly Ireland isolated from the rest of Europe. During a century and a half, contact with the continent was rare. In this new seclusion, an Irish Christian civilization, were given the space and freedom to jointly evolve and present arguably the worlds most intricate and gloriously rich art-form, known today as Irish Celtic-Christian art.

Suggestions for further reading and study:
Celtic Art in Pagan and Christian times by J.Romilly Allen.
Irish Art in three volumes by Francoise Henry.
The Lindisfarne Gospels by Janet Backhouse.
The Book of Kells by Bernard Meehan.

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