15 Facts About Celtic art

Celtic art is associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic languages.

Celtic art is a difficult term to define, covering a huge expanse of time, geography and cultures.

Early Celtic art is another term used for this period, stretching in Britain to about 150 AD.

The Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, which produced the Book of Kells and other masterpieces, and is what "Celtic art" evokes for much of the general public in the English-speaking world, is called Insular art in art history.

Typically, Celtic art is ornamental, avoiding straight lines and only occasionally using symmetry, without the imitation of nature central to the classical tradition, often involving complex symbolism.

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Celtic art has used a variety of styles and has shown influences from other cultures in their knotwork, spirals, key patterns, lettering, zoomorphics, plant forms and human figures.

Archaeologists identified various cultural traits of these peoples, including styles of Celtic art, and traced the culture to the earlier Hallstatt culture and La Tene culture.

Celtic art is associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic languages.

Clearly religious content in Celtic art is rare, but little is known about the significance that most of the decoration of practical objects had for its makers, and the subject and meaning of the few objects without a practical function is equally unclear.

La Tene style is "a highly stylised curvilinear Celtic art based mainly on classical vegetable and foliage motifs such as leafy palmette forms, vines, tendrils and lotus flowers together with spirals, S-scrolls, lyre and trumpet shapes".

Britain made more use of enamel than most of the Empire, and on larger objects, and its development of champleve technique was probably important to the later Medieval Celtic art of the whole of Europe, of which the energy and freedom derived from Insular decoration was an important element.

In Ireland an unbroken Celtic art heritage existed from before and throughout the Roman era of Britain, which had never reached the island, though in fact Irish objects in La Tene style are very rare from the Late Roman period.

The Celtic art form reached its peak in the late 8th century with the Book of Kells, the most elaborate Insular manuscript.

Impact of the Vikings on Irish Celtic art is not seen until the late 11th century when Irish metal work begins to imitate the Scandinavian Ringerike and Urnes styles, for example the Cross of Cong and Shrine of Manchan.

The Celtic Renaissance has been an international phenomenon, with participants no longer confined to just the Old-World Celtic countries.