Is Celtic art unique ?

KingKiller

Is Celtic art unique and if so how ? Now I have to admit I know very little about art of any sort, but lets compare this Saxon peice of art, to Celtic art. My point is, they both seem to use a lot of spirals and curves etc. Is there such a thing as distinctive Celtic art ? Or did the Saxons and later tribes incorporate Celtic art into thier own art ?

Saxon shoulder clasp




Celtic art

See Ye

I'm not sure if you can see it on your Celtic image but I'd been told that Celtic work never had any "ends" whilst Saxon work did. You can clearly see "ends" on your shoulder clasp.

subedei

Celtic knotwork was a later invention, ie early medieval ireland 400 AD - 1200 AD, where it had come to us via the anglo saxons, who in turn had got it from the mediterranian world, and then it came again with the viking knotwork to Ireland, each people had their own style added to the knotwork design but the basic idea of the knotwork was the same.

There was a thing called La Tene Celtic art which was widespread from spain to ireland to all the way to modern day turkey. This had certain properties like being non representational, ornamental, curvy and linear, quite unlike the art of the greco-Roman world. Again this art spread but each area had its own take, while sharing some of the same characteristics.

Ireland and scotland were unique in that they remained celtic all the way to the norman invasions, so in that way they kept their celtic styles and when new things came they adopted them to their own style which had been influenced by the earlier la tene celtic art.

But to answer your question shortly, yes there is very much a style of celtic art, and anglo saxons and vikings were both influenced by earlier celtic art and the mediterranian as the celts were in scandinivia and germany also as was la tene art.

shellykbookey

Based on what I remember from lectures most of the art that seen as irish "celtic" is predomently Viking esp. anything with animmal motifs. Its all just one thing building on another, we hardly had the celtic thing in Ireland until the victorian period when it was used to distinguish us from the English who would be Saxon. Although feel free to correct me if I'm off

subedei

Well think there was a particular irish style, they did combine outside sources, namely british celtic art, with anglo saxon art and then viking art, but then again anglo saxon and viking art was heavily influenced by mediterranian art as well as Steppe art, the list goes on and on, all art has alot of influences but there was definitely a style particular to Ireland even with the influences, plus its hard to tell if the influence didnt go the other way as well considering the sheer amount of Irish missionaries in the continent, it certainly influenced literature, art is a bit more of a guessing game.

As for the the Irish celtic revival it is true that it erupted here in the 19th century most likely spurred by nationalistic reasons but celtic revival had previously been huge in Britain in the 18th and 17th century, with again nationalistic reasons, Boudicca seen as a patriotic symbol of Britain fighting invaders. Alot of the myths of Celts and Druidism comes from Britain in this period.