Studio: international art (14.1898)

Celtic Sculpture

In order to gain a complete insight into the
mysteries of Celtic art it is quite as important to
examine all the decorated monuments as the metal
work and the illuminated MSS. The number of
existing specimens of early Irish metal work and
MSS. is very small compared with that of the
monuments. At the same time the former are easy
of access because they are nearly all in museums
or libraries in large towns; whilst the latter are
scattered all over the country, often in the most
remote places far away from any railway station,
which is perhaps one reason why they are so little
known.

To give some idea of how numerous the Christian
sculptured stones of the pre-Norman period are
in Great Britain, it may be mentioned that examples
are known to exist in about 300 localities in
England, 50 in Wales, 20 in the Isle of Man,
250 in Scotland, and 60 in Ireland; making a
total of 680 in all. In many of these localities
there are several stones, so that the number of
monuments is even greater still than the number
of localities. A large proportion of these have
been brought to light in the course of recent
church restorations, and others have become known
to archaeologists for the first time in consequence

of new districts being opened up by the extension
of railways. The Norman builders appear to have
had the utmost contempt for anything Saxon or
Celtic, and they did not hesitate to smash up the
most beautiful crosses erected by their predecessors
and use the fragments as wall-stones. An interest-
ing instance of this is to be seen in the twelfth-
century west wall of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in
Scotland, the foundation course of which is com-
posed almost entirely of cross-shafts taken from
the old Culdee burial-ground close by. Fortunately
the mediaeval builders did not think it worth while
to deface the sculpture on the monuments they
broke up, and in this way many of these priceless
relics have been preserved until their existence
was made known in the course of works of restora-
tion or rebuilding during the last fifty years.

The peculiar style of art with which the
Christian monuments of the pre-Norman period
in Great Britain are decorated has been called
Irish, because some of the best known and finest
examples of metal work, illuminated MSS., and
crosses in this style were produced in Ireland.
But as monuments exhibiting the same style of
decoration, with certain local modifications, are
found also in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and the

FIG. 2.—THE “GURMARC” STONE AND TWO OTHER STONES WITH ORNAMENTAL CIRCULAR CROSSES, FROM

PEN ARTHUR, NOW IN ST. DAVID’S CATHEDRAL

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