CELTIC ART
Celtic
artwork has been around since at least 700 B.C. in Central Europe, the earliest
recorded settlements being at Halstatt in what is now Austria, and in the 5th
century B.C. centred around Lake Neuchatel in what is now Switzerland, the home
of the early La Tene style of Celtic art, with its curving lines and spirals,
sometimes combined with cross-hatching, mainly produced on metalwork.The Celtic
tribes gradually spread all over Europe, taking their art style with them.
As the Roman Empire expanded and absorbed the conquered Celtic Lands of Europe, continental tribes migrated to the isles of the Britons to join the residents of those relatively safe havens, and took their artwork skills to those islands. In these isolated isles of the ancient Britons and Irish, at the end of the known world of that time, Celtic artwork and culture survived better than on the continent.
The ancient Celts revered nature and the elements, and worshipped the sun, moon, the stars and the Earth Mother, with a wide range of goddesses and gods. They celebrated their deities, ancestors, life, the natural world and its creatures, and the changing of the seasons through their music, poetry, story telling and art. Their poets and musicians, the Bards, and their wise holy men, the Druids, were very high up in the social hierarchy of the tribe, training for many years in their orally learnt crafts, as nothing was written down. Their artisans were also well respected, and were stone carvers, wood and metal workers. They created fabulous works of art in the form of stone monuments, also metal jewellery, weapons and armour, often inlaid with bright enamels.
Their
art normally had a purpose, often to impress neighbouring tribes. The stone carvings
as monuments, memorial stones, or boundary markers, and the jewellery, weapons
and armour to decorate the bodies and clothing of the Celts and their horses.
An often over looked art was that of tattooing, although we have no records of exact designs, we do have contemporary descriptions of tattooed Celtic warriors, written by Roman observers, who made a distinction between permanent tattoo symbols, and the also common use of blue woad as warpaint. Go to the bottom of the page for an article on ancient tattoo.
The number three was sacred to the ancient Celts, symbolic of life, death, and re-birth which was a matter of fact to them. They worshipped a triple-aspected goddess, the Morrigan, seen as Morrigan, Macha, and Badb. Many of the ancient burial mounds contain 3 chambers, and their art often used configurations of three, a common ancient symbol being the triscele. The triple aspect of the mind, body and spirit is still represented today in many religions.
From the 2nd century A.D., the new religion of Christianity appeared in the islands
of Britain and Ireland, and over the next few centuries spread through the Celtic
Lands, monks journeying across the islands to convert the people. Many years
later, these men and women became the Christian Saints.
Interlaced knotwork art probably originated about 1500 years ago in the stonework of the Picts in what is now called Scotland. With the expansion of the Celtic Christian church, the Irish and Scots monks of early medieval times refined it in fabulous illuminated manuscripts, versions of the Gospels, and while converting the ancient people to their new religion, founded monasteries and spread their amazing artwork through the Celtic Lands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, Brittany, and Galicia. These Celtic monks also built beautifully carved stone High Crosses, focal points of medieval communities, which can still be seen all over Ireland and Scotland.
These scribes used knotwork, spirals, diagonal key patterns, and stylised human and animal figures (also interlaced) to illustrate their manuscripts. They probably worked in harsh conditions, presumably for hours by candle light, using primitive materials. They painted on vellum (streched and scraped-smooth calf skin), using feather quills and coloured pigments and inks. The inks were made from local and exotic sources. From close to home:- black from lamp soot, brown from oak apples and iron sulphite, orange from red lead, yellow from orpement (sulphite), green from verdigree (copper), blue from indigo and woad, white from lead and vinegar, and purple from the folian plant. From further afield :- cobalt blue from lapis lazuli, ultramarine from the Himalayas, and red from kermes (insect eggs from the mediterranean) and vermillion (cinnibar - mercuric sulphide). Many of the above materials are considered dangerous to use today. Egg white, or albumen, and gum were used to hold the pigments together for better painting. The artwork was sometimes tiny, and the museums displaying these works today, often have magnifeid viewers. Some of the original artists, hundreds of years later, were destined to be made Saints by the Christian Church.
A few of the amazingly detailed volumes of illuminated manuscripts have survived
to this day. The "Book of Kells" is one of the oldest books in the world,
from around A.D. 800. It was probably made by Colm Cille (St.Columba) and his
monks on the holy island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. Due to Viking
raids the monks moved to Kells in Ireland with the book in the early 800s.
The "Book of Kells", the "Book of Durrow" (even earlier from 675 A.D.) and the "Book of Armagh" are on display in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Another ancient book, from 698 A.D., the "Lindisfarne Gospels" is on display at the British Library in London.
Many other Celtic treasures, including religious relics, ceremonial objects, jewellery, weapons and armour, can be seen in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and the British Museum in London.
The Vikings arrival influenced Celtic artwork, by adding their flair to it, creating a hybrid style.
Celtic knotwork remains a special artform of those Lands, a link between widely spread descendants of Celtic people around the world. Tribes and languages have come and gone, but the artwork survives as a link to our ancestors, representing a continuous, unbroken circle of life.
MAUI CELTIC ART
MAUI CELTIC's own Hamish (Jim) Douglas Burgess continues the tradition with his own Celtic art, in various mediums, recent works including book illustrations, commissioned celtic art, commissioned original celtic tattoos, and even an entire car!
ORIGINAL CELTIC ART BY HAMISH BURGESS, NEW THIS WEEK ...
'LINDISFARNE SPIRALS' © Hamish Burgess 2009
Traditional Celtic art by Hamish Burgess, hand painted with acrylics on ragpaper. This is a reproduction from the Lindisfarne Gospels and mixes spirals and shapes after the early Celtic La Tène style, and zoomorphic birds. MORE INFO & ART ON OUR GALLERY PAGE.
'ROSS-SHIRE ROSE' Hilton of Cadboll Stone © Hamish Burgess 2009
Ancient style Celtic art by Hamish Burgess, hand painted with acrylics on canvas. Created for an Upcountry Maui art show with a red theme, every color used in 'Ross-shire Rose' is a shade of red, running from the lightest pink, which looks white, to the black outline, actually with a slight red tint when used very thinly.MORE INFO & ART ON OUR GALLERY PAGE.
'THE CELTIC CHARIOT'
HIS 'CELTIC CHARIOT' FEATURES ORIGINAL CELTIC DRAGONS ON THE SIDES, AND A KNOTWORK PANEL ON THE TAILGATE. Hand painted in enamels on metal, the original Celtic Dragon mixes several styles of Celtic art, the zoomorphic creature emanating from a tradtional knot (originally found on carved stones in Scotland). The wings are decorated after the early Celtic La Tène style, featuring curvilinear shapes on a background of cross-hatching. The body has scales.
The tailgate features Hamish's company website in a Celtic font between two trisceles. It is surrounded by a Celtic knotwork border in a traditional style. All artwork © Hamish Burgess 2008
'CELTIC TREE OF LIFE' © Hamish Burgess 2003
This original Watercolour piece by Hamish Burgess is a Celtic Tree of Life coming out of a traditional cauldron, with the seven creations of the ancient Celtic world - plants, humans, animals, birds, fish, reptiles and insects.
This Original, and limited edition art prints of it, are available on our GALLERY page
'KEOKEA TREE OF LIFE' © Hamish Burgess 2003
This original piece by Hamish Burgess was a commission for an Irish-Scots friend, customized to feature him and his wife, his dog and creatures seen in his garden in Keokea, Upcountry Maui. Watercolour. It is a Celtic Tree of Life coming out of a traditional cauldron, with the seven creations of the ancient Celtic world - plants, humans, animals, birds, fish, reptiles and insects. In this case the tree, the couple, their dog, a pheasant, koi fish (with water), a skink, and a dragonfly.
Original commissioned works like this are available, customized to feature stylized likenesses of you and your loved ones, and pets or favorite animals. Limited edition art prints of the above are available on our GALLERY page
'SEA, LAND & AIR' © Hamish Burgess 2003
This piece was first an original tattoo design, drawn by Hamish Burgess and applied on a friend who appreciates Celtic art, who then commissioned the above painting. Acrylics on a watercolour background. Featuring zoomorphic Celtic designs, with an original Dolphin, and a traditional Dog and Bird. In the tattoo (around his leg) the birds foot entwined with the dolphin's tail creating a continuous circle of life.
Limited edition art prints of the above are available on our GALLERY page
The following extract was written as a forward for renowned celtic artist Courtney Davis' latest 'Celtic Tattoo Workbook' Vol 2.
CELTIC TATTOO
BY HAMISH (JIM) DOUGLAS BURGESS
Following the ancient patterns of Celtic beliefs, tattooing in the Celtic Lands has gone through a long cycle of life, death, and rebirth. This continuous circle of life is represented by the unbroken interlacing knotwork designs of the early Celts, whose art had rested unnoticed for many years. Only comparatively recently, in the last century, has their art seen a revival by several artists around the world, foremost amongst whom is Courtney Davis, whose latest book we have the pleasure of introducing.
Many people mistake the origin of tattooing as being in Polynesia, the Pacific Islands. In fact, all over the world, since stone age times, many ancient cultures were practicing the art of tattoo. In the early 1990's the discovery of ancient frozen mummies (the 5000 year old tattooed "Iceman" in the Tyrolean Alps, and then the 2400 year old elaborately tattooed Pazyryk "Ice Maiden" and "Warrior" in Siberia) show the antiquity of the art. It is well documented that the Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, Scythians, Siberians, Arabs, Incas, Indians, Asians, North and South American Natives, Japanese, and Pacific Islanders were tattooed.
Our focus here though, is on the Ancient Celts. The Celts themselves had an oral tradition, and therefore no written historical records (although they did have an early system of marks known as Ogham), so the earliest observations of tattooed Celts were noted by their adversaries, the invadingRomans. Many Roman (and Greek) accounts were written of the 'painted barbarians', naming the Britons, Iberians, Gauls, Goths, Teutons, Picts and Scots (the 'Scotii' came from Ireland) as being tattooed, the Latin word for 'tattoo' being 'stigma'.
"The Britons incise on their bodies coloured pictures of animals, of which they are very proud" ( Herod of Antioch, 3rd century AD).
The Romans even named the fierce far northern tribes "Pictii", 'the painted ones', although those ancient warriors known as the Picts had their own name, the Cruithne, 'people of the shapes'. The Roman historian Claudian, noted that these warriors were tattooed:
"...the legion which had been left to guard far-distant Britain, which had kept the fierce Scots in check and gazed at the strange shapes tattooed on the faces of the dying Picts." (Claudian,416-18AD).
He distinguished the difference between the use of an iron needle ("ferro picta, ferro notatas", literally translated as 'iron-marked'), as opposed to body-painting with woad (blue dye), also an ancient practice. A later scribe uses more detail:
"The race of the Picts has a name derived from the appearance of their bodies. These are played upon by a needle working with small pricks and by the squeezed-out sap of a native plant, so that they bear the resultant marks according to the personal rank of the individual, their painted limbs being tattooed to show their high birth." (Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD).
The tattooed Celt seems to have disappeared with the successive waves of continental invaders, absorbing the ancient Britons, and occupying the remaining Celtic Lands of Ireland, Scotland, Man, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and Galacia. Medieval Irish manuscripts, the "Lebor Gabala Erenn" (The Book of the Taking of Ireland) mention tattooing using the word 'rind'(tattoo) and 'rintaib'(tattoo-marks). Very little literature of the 1000 years from the Saxons arrival onwards, mentions the art. Perhaps surprisingly, there are references to Christian devotees bearing marks of their worship, such ideas traditionally frowned upon by the church, with tattooing being totally forbidden by Pope Hadrian 1st in 787 AD, no doubt contributing to the demise of tattoo in Europe.
Meanwhile, Celtic art continued to be carved on large memorial stones across the Celtic Lands, becoming increasingly more detailed and intricate over the centuries, culminating in the fabulous metalwork treasures and incredible illuminated manuscripts of the Celtic monks, which can be seen in the national museums.
A few early Celts had left the homelands adventuring, but with the great age of sea voyaging and exploring of the 16th to 18th centuries, with ships visiting the Americas and later the Pacific, sailors (many Celtic) brought back tales of tattooed 'savages', examples of Polynesian tattoos on themselves (beginning the tradition of the tattooed sailor), and even a tattooed Tahitian man, named Omai, who became quite a celebrity in London society in 1774. The word 'tattoo' comes from the Tahitian word 'Tatau', stemming from 'ta', meaning to hit or strike, referring to the ancient style of tattooing by tapping sharpened bone combs with mallets.
During this time of renewed interest in tattooing again in Britain (after a long period of inactivity), Celtic people were leaving their homes by the thousands to the Americas and beyond, some seeking adventure and opportunity, many in search of a better life, and some driven out by religious persecution. Millions of Irish left their homeland for America due to poverty and starvation of 'The Great Potato Famine' of the 1840s. Scots left by the tens of thousands for America and Canada reaching a peak during 'The Highland Clearances' of the 1760s. Welsh and Cornish miners seeking work left when the mining industries declined. All these Celts took with them around the world their art, languages and music. In most countries in the world you can now find emigrant Celts.
The revival of Tattoo also seems to have gone full circle from the Polynesians, back to the Celts, then with the continuing migration of Celtic people, returning to the Americas and the Pacific.
We are brothers Dudley and Jim (Hamish) Burgess, of Scottish origin, who adopted Cornwall as home over 20 years ago. We were first inspired by Courtney Davis' artwork in his first book, and have both been studying Celtic art since then. Our story also seems to have followed the ancient patterns, starting with Courtney's art, following our own Celtic art paths, and now returns full circle to this forward for Courtney's latest book.
We hope you will also be inspired by Courtney's art, and encourage you to tap into your heritage with a Celtic tattoo, and walk the path with your ancestors... May the road rise to meet you.
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Hamish (Jim) Burgess, |
Dudley Burgess, |