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The
Continuum of Celtic Interlace When I was a youth learning to play the Highland
bagpipe, I copied a chart from one of my tutors that showed who studied with
who, from the living masters that my teachers learned from, back to Angus
MacKay, the piper to Queen Victoria and through him back to the MacCrimmons, the
hereditary pipers to the chiefs of the MacLeods.
From Finlay MacCrimmon in the 16th century down to myself I
recorded nineteen generations of tuition. In the not so distant past the only
way to hear and to learn music was to hear it live and this is still the best
way. Recordings and broadcasting have transcended time and space somewhat, but
the rare earliest recordings are now barely over a century old. Written music is
of course older, but the fact remains that most traditional musicians learn
their art from others on a face-to-face basis. Tunes and influences from
recordings are still for the most part learned directly from other living
musicians. Our heritage of traditional music is dependant on an
unbroken chain. Until the present era of recordings, only real time human
contact has been the way that tunes, lyrics and musical technique have been
passed from one generation to the next. In the visual arts of graphics and
sculpture this limitation is not the case. While we can only hear the music of
ancient times as it survives in a living tradition, we can see surviving
examples of artwork hundreds or thousands of years old and the observant student
of art can acquire images, influences and techniques directly from the distant
past. Unlike musicians, most Celtic artists and designers working today are
self-taught and only a few have had the benefit of a one-on-one teacher. Yet
every day thousands of people are exposed to monuments of Celtic design that
have stood on the same spots for a thousand years. The survival of monumental
stone carvings in the form of the High Crosses and other monuments has meant
that Celtic design has been a constant part of the visual world in the Celtic
lands even when sometimes for generations the art was not practiced. Writers telling the story of Celtic Art usually convey
the message that the style �died out� over several centuries as a result of
the devastating raids of the Vikings, the Norman invasions and subsequent shifts
towards more mainstream European fashions of decorative arts. To state that the
current revival of Celtic Art is a continuum of the Early Christian tradition
requires a bold imagination. One cannot honestly say that Celtic design
traditions have been passed from master to apprentice down to the present. The
design tradition did continue in this way until at least the 16th
century. The emergence of complex interlaced designs in the 7th
or possibly 6th century begins the style that the art historians call
Insular Art or Hiberno-Saxon Art. This style is what we commonly call Celtic
Art. More correctly Celtic Art describes the older style of spiral and trumpet
designs. The native pre-Christian style combined with animal and knotwork
interlace, step and key patterns and Early Christian figurative art to create a
very eclectic and exuberant style. At the time that this new style burst forth,
Ireland and Britain were coming out of two centuries of isolation that followed
the fall of the Roman Empire. Germanic and Mediterranean influences contributed
motifs to the new art but it quickly took on a very distinctive character of its
own. Much debate has occurred in the past century about
where and when this synthesis occurred. As timelines become more plausible after
several generations of new discoveries, research and argument, the consensus is
emerging that the Insular style, characterized by interlace, sprang forth and
spread rather quickly sometime between the years 630 and 690 A. D. The style is
most commonly associated with the Celtic lands but it was also practiced
extensively in England and was exported to Europe by Irish and Northumbrian
monastic activities on the continent. In modern times Celtic Art is popularly
thought of in terms of national identity and therefore specifically Irish,
Scottish or Welsh. To properly understand the true history of the style it is
necessary to reign in patriotic passions and accept that Insular Art was an international
style for several centuries after it first emerged. The Book of Kells is to many the greatest
accomplishment of Celtic Art. This highly decorated manuscript of the four
Gospels is thought to have been made on Iona around 800 A. D. Arguments for
other dates and origins in Northumbria or Ireland are characteristic of the
controversy one encounters when researching Celtic Art. Ireland, Pictland and
Northumbria share the earliest �schools� of Hiberno-Saxon interlace. By the
end of the 8th century Celtic Art was at its peak. The monastery
founded by St. Columba on Iona, off the west coast of Scotland was also at the
peak of its influence at that time. Physically located between Ireland, Pictland
and Northumbria, Iona, in what was then Dalriada, was at the crossroads of
religion, scholarship and artistic development during the Golden Age of Celtic
Art. Viking raids in the early 9th century
changed things considerably. Iona, Lindisfarne and other coastal monasteries
were all plundered. Iona relocated most of its resources to Kells in Ireland.
Manuscripts and other portable objects such as jewellery were still produced in
the Insular style but during the Viking Age the massive stone sculptures that
are the High Crosses were made. Stone carving has been a part of the artistic record of
early Celtic Christian period even before interlace designs became common. The
Cross of St. Patrick at Caradonnagh is one of the earliest surviving examples of
Celtic knotwork. The elaborate Pictish stones also incorporated a great deal of
highly developed interlace in the 7th to 9th centuries. It
is easy to imagine that the shift in emphasis to larger stone monuments was a
way of keeping artistic activity alive at a time when the possession of
treasures that could easily be carried off attracted violent raiders. The high
crosses are part of a trend influenced by the Culdees, Servants of God,
that were a reform movement within the Celtic Church. Culdees increasingly
emphasized scripture. Crosses came to have more of their decorative carvings
illustrating Bible stories, although interlace and other elements of Celtic
design persisted as well. The turbulent Viking period is difficult to understand
in terms of how it affected Celtic Art. The Vikings brought an interlace animal
design tradition of their own that is related through the Germanic/Nordic
heritage of the Saxons to that of the Insular tradition. Sorting out what was
stolen, what was copied and what were just parallel developments of related
traditions is beyond the scope of this discussion. The Viking interlace style
tended to be more chaotic and tangled. The regular over and under interlace
alternations were not always followed carefully by the Vikings. What began as
raiding eventually became settlement, trade and conversion to Christianity. This
contact influenced the design traditions of both worlds. The Norman conquests of the 11th and 12th
centuries replaced the popularity of Celtic design with mainstream European
tastes. When the secular and ecclesiastical leadership of the Gaelic and Welsh
worlds adopted the up-to-date fashions of England and the continent, Celtic
designs became an old fashioned folk art, that when it survived tended to be in
the more isolated and impoverished areas. Never
the less the creation of Irish high crosses persisted.
Self-conscious use of what was by the 12th century an archaic
style made the statement that these late monuments connected their patrons with
the distant past. This is the same
way that modern Celtic crosses are made to establish a link with ancient
heritage. As the fashion for Celtic design declined, interlace
began to be used as an emblem of fidelity to older ways and Gaelic roots. The physical survival of ancient Celtic monuments as well as
painted Gospel manuscripts and metalwork have lingered like embers and have
fanned to life new creations that survive from every century since the art went
into decline. Celtic interlace never faded away completely. It was always being done somewhere, even if only on a limited
scale. Monumental carvings that include interlace designs persisted in the
Scottish Highlands and Hebrides at least until the 16th century. This
area was highly affected by Viking activity but was barely affected at all by
Norman influences. The Lords of the Isles maintained an autonomous Gaelic
society throughout the middle ages. Much of their regalia and artifacts were
highly decorated with interlace, which by later times were knotwork patterns and
interlaced foliage motifs. Many of
the best examples exist on Iona, where the Lords of the Isles supported the
monastery, nunnery and Cathedral. MacLean's Cross on Iona is one of the latest
examples and dates from the late 15th century. The Protestant Reformation brought the tradition of
Celtic interlace closer to extinction than any previous point in history. When
Marion MacLean, the last prioress of Iona gave up the nunnery lands in 1574, the
most recent monuments already lacked the interlace designs that had persisted
until earlier that century. Knotwork ornament continued to be used to decorate
the Highlanders� weapons and brooches right up until the Jacobite rebellion of
1745. Chances are that there are some major gaps in the succession between
generations of artisans in the later centuries. By the time of the Jacobite
period the style has taken on a primitive, rustic look that while it preserves
the interlace tradition, is a far cry from the design sophistication and
technical mastery seen a thousand years earlier. When discussing the Celtic Revival of the 19th
century other writers have looked for a seminal event, such as the discovery of
the Tara Brooch or the publication of J. Romilly Allen�s books as the
beginning of the story of the revival of interlace designs. It is my premises
that interlace designs never became totally extinct. I realize this is a very
risky thesis for two reasons. Many objects cannot be reliably dated and no
continuum of practice can be demonstrated. The continued presence of ancient
monuments combined with the survival of Jacobite era heirlooms meant that visual
prototypes were not lost for future designers even if very little interlace was
created during the century following the �Forty-five. Victorian tastes for busy eclectic ornament combined
with a romantic nostalgia for medieval themes gave rise to the revival of Celtic
design beginning with the promotion of the �Tara� Brooch. Discovered in 1850 by an Irish peasant woman in Meath, the
brooch was purchased by the Dublin jewellery firm Waterhouse & Co. that then
made copies for sale to the gentry. This began not only the production of Celtic
design objects by modern manufacturing methods of multiples, but also of
marketing and advertising of these items. The
Tara Brooch was promoted as �national ornaments worn by [Ireland�s] princes
and nobles in ages long since past�. When Queen Victoria purchased one for
herself and one for Prince Albert at the Crystal Palace Exposition in 1851 the
royal association further validated and it was also very good business for
Waterhouse. Archeology met marketing again when reproductions of Irish High
Crosses began to be mass-produced as gravestones. The fashion for these things
soon was followed by designers who created new designs and adapted old images as
well in the revival of the entire vocabulary of Celtic design. As interest in native Insular antiquities grew, museum
collections were formed and books and articles began to appear giving shape to
an historical understanding of the Celtic Art.
Margaret Stokes, herself a gifted artist, published a book in 1887 titled
Early Christian Art in Ireland. She
writes, �It is therefore for
those who practice these handicrafts in the present day that we hope to show the
advantage of a close study of such of these ancient writings, relics and
monuments as have, through the energy and learning of our antiquaries, been
discerned and preserved for our instruction.� Earlier, in 1861 Stokes had
illuminated the title page for Samuel Ferguson�s Cromlech of Howth.
Her original graphic design was based on the style of the Gospel
manuscripts, but it showed mastery in her ability to create new compositions
rather than just copy and adapt those from the past.
Stokes was writing in interesting times as the Irish Literary Revival was
inventing a new identity for Ireland and at the same time social and artistic
theories were forming the Arts and Crafts movement.
These two trends came together in the Emer Guild. The Emer Guild was founded in 1902 outside Dublin by
Evelyn Gleason, and Susan and Elizabeth Yeats, sisters of the poet William
Butler Yeats. They had a very
direct association with the Arts and crafts movement of William Morris that
attempted to use the dignity of honest handcrafts as a social antidote to the
impersonal Industrial Revolution. Susan
Yeats had worked as an assistant embroideress to William Morris�s daughter
Mary. The Emer Guild produced
textile embroidery, carpets and tapestries incorporating interlace and other
traditional Irish images. Some of
their greatest projects were commissioned for the Church.
Banners and vestments were produced for St. Brendan�s Cathedral,
Longhea and others as Celtic Revival church design gained favorable patronage in
the early years of the 20th century. The sensuous tendrils of Art Nouveau have much in
common with Celtic interlace and there are several instances where the two
overlap. The dense interlace
ornamental details of Chicago architect Louis Sullivan have been associated with
Celtic design, perhaps as much because of his Irish surname as the similarities
of the style. Sullivan was not
deliberately making a statement about ethnic heritage.
His work was part of design trends that were based in modern concepts and
concerns. Another Chicago designer,
Thomas A. O�Shaughnessy was making a very deliberate and conscious effort to
connect his work with his Irish roots. Trained in stained glass and working in an Art Nouveau
style, O�Shaughnessy designed a series of windows and interior stencils for
Old Saint Patrick�s Church in Chicago, a project begun in 1912.
�Old St. Pat�s� was and still is a focal point of the
often-passionate Irish-American community in Chicago.
Legend claims O�Shaughnessy designed his first church at age 12 and
that he inherited his grandfather�s revolutionary glass making secrets.
When touring the church earlier this year I was told that when he went to
Ireland to study Celtic Art he was the last person allowed alone with the Book
of Kells. The result of
O�Shaughnessy�s work at Old St. Pat�s is a spectacular effect on a grand
scale. Close examination at first shocks the viewer who is knowledgeable about
Celtic Art. The strict conventions
of over-under alternation and endless cords are not followed at all.
The splendid overall effect seems to be marred with uncountable errors of
Celtic design grammar. As is the
case with many modern revivalists of Celtic Art O�Shaughnessy was calling his
own tune. O�Shaughnessy was reinventing Celtic art for new purposes.
The figurative content of his windows, Irish Saints and their stories
speak of the heritage of the American Irish and their Catholic faith.
Celtic design was a new discovery for his audience.
It is doubtful that hardly anyone noticed the inconsistency of his
interlace designs for decades. Especially influential on the revival of the art was
the work of J. Romilly Allen. Early
Christian Monuments of Scotland was published in 1903 and Celtic Art in
Pagan and Christian Times in 1912. Allen�s books were made for the
historian rather than the artist, but the artists found them useful. J. Romilly Allen was an engineer from Wales who went to
Scotland to work on dry docks in Edinburgh.
His fascination with ancient monuments led to a second career as an
archeologist. Allen systematically
studied the methods of construction of Celtic Art and cataloged existing
monuments with descriptions and illustrations with an untiring eye for details.
The contribution to archeology was fundamental to the understanding of
the dates, origins and styles of early monuments, especially those in Scotland.
His contribution to the revival of practical application of traditional
designs was a result of his work being used both a source book for designers and
the best source in print of understanding how interlace designs, especially
knotwork, are to be composed. The
fashion for Celtic design monuments that immerged in the middle of the 19th
century and persists to the present was greatly assisted by the availability of
Allen�s books. Note to reader: When this article was published by Dalriada Magazine, it was ended here due to space limitations with the 3rd part run in the following issue. If you continue reading you will have the article as I originally wrote it, or click here and skip to a revised and somewhat longer part 3: Continuum Continued. Celtic design in jewellery and the goldsmith�s craft
spawned some lasting trends in the revival of Celtic interlace. The
reproductions and copies of brooches that were popular in the 19th
century were a fashionable appropriation rather than a continuation of a design
tradition. Towards the turn of the
century craftsmen and designers began to experiment with original Celtic designs
adapted to contemporary fashion needs. The
Manx designer, Archibald Knox studied Celtic design and fused it with the design
sensibilities of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Knox designed an attractive range of jewellery and fashion accessories
that were manufactured by the London firm of Liberty and Company.
This was a very upscale and mainstream market sold at the company�s
emporium on Regent Street or by catalogue �from John O�Groats to Land�s
End.� In contrast to the cosmopolitan product of Waterhouse
in Dublin and Liberty in London, a small enterprise on the Isle of Iona was to
bring Celtic jewellery back to it�s roots and ironically also to establish
Celtic design items as tourist souvenirs. The
age of rail and steamship was giving rise to increasing middle class tourism.
Recreational tourists as well as religious pilgrims were increasingly
making their way to Iona. Alexander Ritchie and his wife Euphemia, both Gaelic speaking
natives of nearby Mull established a jewellery, metal craft and embroidery
business called Iona Celtic Art. Building
on the designs of the ancient monuments on Iona, the Ritchies developed a
fluency in the language of Celtic design. There is a slightly rustic look to their work, but for the
most part it was much more sophisticated than the na�ve folk art that the
setting conjured up for the viewer. During
the winters the Ritchies studied art in Glasgow and they quickly learned to
utilize a mix of modern mass production outsourcing to manufactures in Glasgow
and Birmingham. At the same time
they maintained hands-on craftsmanship for brass repousee and embroidery on the
island. From 1899 to 1941 Iona Celtic Art had very little
competition in Celtic jewellery and during this time the audience and cultural
context evolved. In the 19th
century Celtic jewellery was a gentrified affectation.
The Ritchies� work was more affordable and became both the treasured
heirlooms of Scottish families as well as souvenirs for the well traveled.
Both of these trends continue in Celtic design to the present day.
The antique look of Iona Celtic Art gives the impression that these types
of things had been around longer and more commonly than was actually the case.
Many have been disappointed to learn that the hallmarks on Gran�s
brooch are not nearly as old as assumed. Designs
that deliberately make a link with history, when successful can create their own
myth of continuity with the past. The Ritchies were sensitive to the dignity of the
heritage they drew upon. The ethics
and sensibilities of the Arts and crafts movement were certainly known to them,
but they really were in a league of their own.
The success of their enterprise led others to produce cheap knock-offs
for the tourist trade as well as influencing the design of quality-crafted goods
generally sold through highland outfitters.
The Victorian thistle motifs of Scottish regalia have been gradually
shifting towards more Celtic designs throughout the 20th century.
After the war several firms and individuals continued
to the Ritchie�s designs as well as new beginning new trends in Celtic
jewellery. One trend of particular
interest is the techniques of piercing out interlace patterns so that the
background is open space and the knotwork becomes a lattice.
This is now nearly a universal practice in Celtic jewellery but seems as
if it must have always been done. In
fact the transition to this approach happened in the late 1940�s and 1950�s.
A pioneer of this style, John Hart, working in Glasgow, created a large
number of original designs in this manner.
Hart�s designs are still in production by the firm Hebridean Jewellery
on South Uist, run by his son John Hart Jr. The publication of George Bain�s textbook Celtic
Art the Methods of Construction in 1951 presented the work of J. Romilly
Allen through the medium of a gifted artist, experienced teacher and
enthusiastic advocate. During his
career as an educator in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Bain pursued a passionate interest in
Celtic design. After his retirement
he published his landmark book and tried to establish a school dedicated to
Celtic art in the Highlands. These
were the days of the �Picasso craze� and Bain�s book had little impact
until it was re-released in 1971. Then
it became the bible for a new generation that was ready to learn his methods and
create a new renaissance of Celtic art and design.
The career stories of most living Celtic artists include exposure to
George Bain�s book as a watershed experience.
Celtic Art the Methods of Construction was intended as a secondary
education studio arts textbook to teach the fundamentals of Celtic design
through a series of charts and drawings, many that were taken from the Book of
Kells and other ancient sources. The
book also contains many of Bain�s original designs and photographs of projects
done by students. Unfortunately it
has been far more common for his book to be used as a clip art source book than
as a guide to mastering the idiom and to go on to achieve original designs. Since the 1970�s a great deal of new Celtic art has
been appearing. The crafts movement
has resulted the reemergence of the artist/entrepreneur.
The availability of training and materials, the sales venues of craft
shows, an increasingly appreciative and well-informed audience, as well as new
technology have enabled numerous creative individuals to pursue artistic
careers. Widely distributed books,
cards and prints by such popular Celtic artists as Jim Fitzpatrick and Courtney
Davis have also served to bring Celtic design to a wider audience and at the
same time serve as role models to the next generation. For most of the 20th century Celtic Art has
been seen as a �lost art� and those who practice it have done so in relative
isolation. In the past 20 years the
increase in the number of artists practicing Celtic design and rising popularity
of Celtic art has resulted in the publication of new books both about historical
subjects and instructional technique approaches.
Many people have found George Bain�s instructions bewildering.
His approach relied on a certain amount of intuitive ability on the part
of the student. George�s son Iain
Bain published a book on knotwork that approaches construction in a more
engineered way. Aidan Meehan has
published a series of books on Celtic design since the 1980�s.
His book Knotwork; The Secret Method of the Scribes identifies the
�triple-grid method� derived from carefully studying the original sources.
Other how-to books have also appeared in print.
Due to the increasing number of artists competing in the marketplace,
quality and originality have been improving.
If O�Shaughnessy were not the only Celtic designer in Chicago in 1912
it is unlikely that his interlace would have strayed so far from historical
standards. In the past decade the
number of Celtic jewelers has exploded. In
1990 it was still common to hear people say how long and hard they had searched
for an authentic Celtic knotwork ring. Today
there is so much more to choose from that jewelers cannot afford to be lax in
quality or design. More
practitioners of the art not only means more art but also means that it is far
more likely that an artist or designer will be subject to the pressure of
competitive rivalry. Many now benefit from association or observation of a
peer�s techniques and ideas. We
live in an age of unprecedented communication and information.
Exposure to diversity of ideas and approaches is stimulating and
beneficial. Interlace designs are not the only elements of Celtic
Art. The spiral and trumpet designs
have an older tradition and can more authentically be called �Celtic�.
For whatever reason, interlace designs became the hallmark of the Insular
tradition and have been more recognizably Irish, Gaelic or Celtic for the past
several hundred years. To most
non-scholars it is specifically interlace that makes Celtic Art distinctive.
From the 7th century interlace designs became a vibrant
international style that was part of the expanding world of Celtic Christianity
and scholarship. As invasions and
continental influences replaced Celtic Art as the dominant style, it became a
self-conscious link with the past by later medieval times.
Rediscovery by various individuals in the past 150 years have gathered
together the legacies of both the distant past and more recent ideals of
national identity, ethnic pride, romantic nostalgia and spiritual discovery.
The next article of this series will address the social context, meaning
and symbolism of Celtic interlace. Sources In addition to the books mentioned in the text: T. J. Edelstein, editor, Imagining an Irish Past,
The Celtic Revival 1840-1940 Smart Museum of Art, Chicago 1992 J. Lang �Survival and revival in Insular Art� The Insular Tradition Karkov, Farrell & Ryan
editors, State University of New York Press 1997 L & J Laing Art of the Celts Thames and
Hudson 1992 I. MacCormack The Celtic Art of Iona, New Iona
Press 1994 Are you a Celtic Artist, Designer or Art Historian? If you are and would like to be part of a continuing discussion on Celtic Art you may join the Celtic Art Mailing List Click here for details
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