Great book of celtic patterns - The ultimate design sourcebook for artists and crafters

Lora S. Irish

Fox Chapel Publishing Company

2007

189 páginas

6h 18m

ISBN-13: 9781565233140

Early Celtic art consisted of spiral, maze, and key pattern designs. The first examples of Celtic knot work appeared in the ninth century, with the first Viking invasion of Britain. Around this time Irish monks began work on the Book of Kells, probably the most noted of the illuminate-Christian manuscripts (writting embellished with hand-decorated and gold-leafed borders, letters and illustrations). All but two of the manuscript's 680 pages are richly decorated with pre-Christian Celtic spiral and key pattern art, interlaced Viking animals, and Celtic knot patterns that are twisted or incorporated to become initial letters of sections of the text. These complex designs continued to evolve in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and North England until 1150, when the Viking raids and the Viking influence on Celtic art diminished.

Viking animals are an important part of the Celtic knot design and deer, wolves, birds, and dragonlike creatures were favorite subjects. Both the Celtic and Viking cultures believed that adorning an object with an animal gave that object the strength or attributes of the animal shown. Today's Celtic knot is an incorporation of all the culture that inhabited the British Isles during the eighth through 12th centuries.