Early Celtic Art

Author(s): Paul Jacobsthal

Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 67, No. 390 (Sep., 1935), pp. 113-
114+116-118+120-123+127
Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/866191
Accessed: 17/08/2010 06:16

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bmpl.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs.

http://www.jstor.org

The Reconstruction
might early have become separated from the
remainder of the manuscript even before it was
cut up. The style of these missing miniatures would
almost certainly be that of the Group A or Group B
artist, or both.
Important as it would be from a liturgical stand-
point to be able to supply the missing textual con-
tents of the reconstructed missal, it would be even
more valuable, in my opinion, to be able to see the
style of decoration used in the earlier part of the
manuscript, especially if any whole pages could be
found showing the actual relations of the different
types of initials to each other. For, after all, the
greatest value of the reconstructed manuscript is
undoubtedly stylistic. It is the only manuscriptof its
period which, though apparently made in England,
combines the purely English tradition of illumina-
tion with unmistakeably foreign elements. Surely
this means that English and foreign artists were
actually engaged on the same piece of work and that,
separate as their individual styles are in the manu-
script, they must have exercised even during the pro-
gress of the work, but still more after the book was
finished and displayed, a very great influence on
each other and on subsequent illuminators. This
manuscript, then, seems to represent the source of
the new style which suddenly appeared in English
illumination in the late fourteenth century, super-
seding the older type of decoration such as is seen
in the Lytlington Missal. Later examples of the
fully-developed style are both plentiful and fine;
two names of illuminators are associated with most
of them: Hermann, now known to be Hermann
Scheerre,22 of Chichele Breviary and Bedford
EARLY CELTIC ART
HE civilization of Barbarian Europe
during the last five centuries B.C. is
essentially of the " Dark Ages." Greek
and Italian influences were indeed at
work around the periphery of the
Mediterranean world, but the results of that
fertilization were arts and styles of art fundamentally
new and fundamentally barbarian.
Their value was unequal. Some, like Iberian art,
have no importance in the general stream of history.
The most popular work of early Spanish art, the
" "
Lady of Elche in the Louvre, is refined and
attractive indeed in its blend of Greek and Phoeni-
cian over native elements; but an Iberian style
never really achieved effective existence. This was
an art without a future, and there are no Iberian
undercurrentsin the Roman or Romanesque art of
Spain.
With Scythian art it is otherwise. In the first
place, its effective range was extraordinarily wide:
1 Translated, in collaboration with the author, by C. F. C.
Hawkes.
of an English CarmeliteMissal
Psalterfame, andJohn Siferwas,the chief illuminator
of the SherborneMissal and the Lovel Lectionary.23
All the important elements of the new style24 as
represented in the work of these illuminators can be
traced back to the reconstructed Carmelite Missal ;
therein lies no difficulty. The puzzling problem of
the origin of the new style, therefore, has resolved
itself into a search for continental parallels for the
two foreign styles found in the new manuscriptwith
a view to localizing them and, if possible, accounting
for their introduction into England.
In the light of this fact, the value of finding further
examples of the work of these two foreign artists,
such as probably would exist in the missing portion
of the manuscript, can hardly be overestimated. It
may be that some reader will be reminded by the
descriptions or the pictures in this necessarily brief
account, of some fragment he has seen which bears
sufficientresemblance to either of these two styles to
suggest the possibility of its belonging to the missing
part of the reconstructedmanuscript. There might
be whole pages existing as loose sheets, such as are
constantly to be seen framed for sale in book-
sellers' shops ; or, more likely, other cuttings from
the missal may have found their way into forgotten
scrap-books. A search for such fragments will
form a part of the next stage of work on the recon-
structed missal. Any suggestions at this time,
therefore, as to where they might be found would be
greatly appreciated, if communicated to the writer
through THE BURLINGTONMAGAZINE.
22
See THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, LXVI (January, 1935], P. 40.
3 Harl. MS.
7026 in the British Museum.
24 For a discussionof this style, see MILLAR-: op. cit., p. 29 seq.
BY PAULJACOBSTHAL'
spatially, it extended as far as China, and in time it
lasted long enough in Europe to leave its mark on
the Dark-Age styles of the barbarian migrations.
But above all, it is an art of perfect individuality,
absolutely unclassical, and only superficially tinged
by influences from the Greek colonies on the Black
Sea. The Scythian animal-styleexpressesa Eurasiatic
beast-mythology, a totemism which was all its own.
But it is the other great barbarian contribution
to European art as a whole that must rank as the
greatest. This is the art of the Celts, in archaeological
"
parlance called La T~ne art," after the site where
such Celtic material first happened to attract modern
attention, La Thne on the Lake of Neuchitel. Both
in its absolute value, and in the importance of its
influence, Celtic art is beyond doubt superior to
Scythian art. It arose in the great age of Celtic
expansionwhich reached Spain in the West, Scotland
in the north, and in the East penetrated Asia Minor.
Its initial stages were thus contemporary with the
age of Pericles, but in the West, to which it came
at last to be confined, it lived long, and its potency
II3
Early CelticArt
is still manifest in the work of the Irish monks who
illuminated the Books of Durrow and of Kells.
The products of Celtic art have been studied mainly
by prehistorians, whose chief interest has been in
their evidence for Celtic history and the course of
Celtic migrations, and for the people's manner of
life and material civilization. They have been much
less interested in Celtic art itself. The strict study of
art is, in fact, not as a rule a prehistorians'pursuit.
But it is our pursuit in these pages. After the
research work done by Riegl and Wickhoff, there is
no longer any danger of our seeing La Thne art
simply as a degeneration of classical art, as an abuse
of elements derived from the South. Our eyes are
open now, and we can realize the individuality and
the true greatness of which it was capable, and can
find it easy to appreciate its new and positive
rhythms and the possibilitiesof development implied
in its principles.
About 400 B.C., Celtic art flashes suddenly out
upon the scene. It did not, of course,lack connexion
with the previous " Hallstatt " phase of European
art, from whose strictly geometric repertoryelements
passed directly into the La Tbne style. For
instance, in the chariot-grave of a well-equipped
Celtic warrior at La Gorge-Meillet on the Marne
was found a bronze helmet [PLATE I, A] ; like the
other objects in the grave, it dates from the fourth
century B.C., but its decoration of refined slanting
meanders, neatly engraved in angular wavy-lines,
is purely geometric. These geometric motifs are
often found in friendly association with the new
La Tene rhythm on the same piece as, for instance,
on the wonderful bronze flagons from Lorraine,
inlaid with coral and enamel, in the British Museum
[PLATES I, C, III, D]. They are indeed so tenacious
and long-lived that there are geometric residues
even in the Celtic art of Roman Imperial times in
Great Britain and Ireland.
When the Greeks passed from their geometric age
into the " orientalizing " phase, the transition lasted
about a hundred years. Before the new style with its
consummate curves became a perfect and unanalys-
able unity, it went through many transitions and
hybrid forms: slowly and gradually the old
geometric rigidity became infiltrated and melted
by the new and rich oriental curve-rhythms. With
the Celts it was not so : the foreign rhythms rushed
in with an intoxicating effect, like a tempest and-
a phenomenon almost without parallel-there was
scarcely any phase of" genesis." This is not due to
a lack of finds, to the incompleteness of our know-
ledge. The Celtic style really did appear all of a
sudden, as if by magic. An extraordinarily strong
artistic power enabled the Celts to shape, out of
these diversely-born invading southern elements,
together with the residues of their own " geometric,"
a unitary and organic style.
Since the Bronze Age, Northern Europe had been
in close contact with the South, both giving and
I14
receiving. In the Hallstatt period, immediately
preceding that of La Thne, southern imported forms
already occur, but they stand out like isolated foreign
wordsin the language of their northernsurroundings.
Hallstatt men, as we know, had and handled many
precious imported vessels, but eyes for them they
had not yet. It was not until a century or so had
passed that men began to appreciate the distinctive-
ness and beauty of what their grandfathers had
imported. It is very important to realise that many
of the classical elements present in La Tbne work
have their roots, not in contemporary southern art,
but in an older sub-archaic stratum. This may be
partly explained by the "time-lag" in appreciation
that we have divined: partly by another cause.
The classical element in La Thne art derives ulti-
mately from Greekinspiration, but this only reached
the Celts indirectly through the medium of Italian,
especially of Etruscan, art. There is also Scythian,
Thracian, and even Persian art to be considered.
And all these peripheral styles contained something
of a Greek inspiration of the older character which
they were keeping in stagnating life.
The best way to understandthe essential problems
of Celtic art is by an analysis of selected pieces.
PLATE I, B is a strip of thin gold foil, found in a
tomb at Eygenbilsenin Belgium, together with other
pieces of Celtic work, and imported Italian bronze
vessels. The upper frieze of discs in a chain-pattern
is typically Celtic. But the lower, a row of sickle-like
curls, suggests classical analogies, while the pattern
of the middle zone is classical absolutely: large
lotos-flowers alternating with small three-leaved
palmettes which grow out of horizontal S-shaped
supporting tendrils. It is not difficult to recognize
the Greek prototype. But when we compare this
with any similar Greek patterns, a radical difference
at once becomes apparent. Greek form is moving,
flowing: Celtic form stands still-it is frozen.
The Eygenbilsen lotos-flowershave discs inserted at
their hearts and their petal-tips, and there are more
at the bottom beneath the three-leaved palmettes :
in them we have at once an expression of this static
tendency, spoiling the organic character of the
floral ornament.
There are other pieces o'f Celtic work which
express Celtic Kunstwollenin a much more positive
way. PLATEI, D is a bronze disc, found in the Marne
region. There is a plain central boss and round it
four bossesdecorated with enamel cell-workarranged
in a sort of scale pattern. The circular field on which
these bosses stand is decorated by two concentric
zones of openwork design: the outer one displays,
in symmetric alternation with the enamelled bosses,
lotos-flowersformed of two outward-curving petals,
while the inner zone around the central boss is
filled with complicatedopenwork,obviously designed
with compasses. This is no less true of the outer
pattern : in fact, it is true of the entire disc; an
experiment [PLATE I, E] has proved that the whole
A-BRONZE HELMET (DETAIL) FROM LA GORGE-MEILLET
(MUSEE DES ANTIQUITES NATIONALES, SAINT-GERMAIN)

B-GOLD STRIP FROM EYGENBILSEN, BELGIUM (MUSEE DU CINQUANTENAIRE, BRUSSELS) ; C-BRONZE BEAK-FLAGON
(DETAIL) FROM LORRAINE. ONE OF A PAIR (BRITISH MUSEUM)

D-BRONZE OPEN-WORK DISC WITH ENAMELLED BOSSES, FROM CUPERLY, MARNE (MUSEE DES ANTIQUITE'S
NATIONALES, SAINT-GERMAIN); E-MATHEMATICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PATTERN OF PLATE I, D

PLATE I. EARLY CELTIC ART


complex design is the result of an ingenious and
quite refined mathematical construction based on a
" modulus " and
adopting three radii. The bronze
plaque in the British Museum from the Somme-
Bionne chariot-burial (also in the Marne) will serve
as a further instance of such compass-construction:
it is rather smaller, and displays a complicated bixt
attractive openwork pattern of half-moon-shaped
leaves, circles, and small curve-sided triangles. We
thus make the acquaintance of a fact of great
importance for the appreciation of Celtic culture
in the fourth century B.c.
It may be remarked that those modern mathe-
maticians who have analysed Egyptian or Saracenic
designs in the same sort of way have fallen into error.
They have taken it for granted that the patterns
were drawn with full mathematical consciousness.
The truth is that the Egyptians, the Saracens and
the Celts no more worked with mathematical
consciousness than Nature does when creating
flowers or crystals. They drew spontaneously;
they needed no mathematical schooling to express
their natural taste in playing at experiments with
compasses. This small bronze plaque, with its
attractive puzzle-pattern, serves also very well to
demonstrate an essential difference which should be
noticed between Celtic and classical art. Classical
art creates " positive " forms, to which it confines
significance, and sets them against a shapeless and
meaningless background. With the Celts, on the
other hand, what might be such a background takes
on shape and meaning as a second " positive "
pattern, so that the action and reaction of the two
sets of designs make the whole thing mazily am-
biguous, in a manner entirelyintentional and entirely
unclassical. All this openwork, be it added, was
meant to be mounted on wood or leather coloured
red, to show through its interstices as a substitute
for coral or enamel inlay.
The bronze plate [PLATE II, A] illustrates some
other very well-marked features of Celtic decorative
style. With its mirror-like pendant, it belongs to
a large set of bronze mountings for wooden vessels.
To decorate wood with such mountings, whether
of bronze or gold, was a favourite Celtic practice;
this particular group was found many years ago in
an easterly district of North Italy and is now in the
Prehistoric Museum at Berlin. Like the fine
collection of material in the Ancona museum from
the rich Celtic graves in that neighbourhood, it does
much to reveal to us the civilization of those
" Gisalpine Gaulish " Celts who came in the fourth
century s.c. to settle on the Adriatic coast. Here,
indeed, are some of the noblest known pieces of
La Thne workmanship. The outline of our piece,
beginning in a rounded almond form, curves left-
handed into a neck which swings round to end in
a fan-shaped head. Both " curving-almond " and
"fan" shapes are popular in Celtic art and, in fact,
recur in the engraved design with which this piece
Early CelticArt
is decorated. A flat rim runs all round it engraved
with circles, some of which are carefully pierced for
fixing nails, but within this both " almond " and
" fan "shapes rise to form convex surfaces. On each,
in smooth polished metal against a background
roughened with the punch, stands out a sinuous
tendril, its convolutions adapted with graceful
ingenuity to the difficult shape of the field. Now it is
an utterly unclassical principle to decorate one form
by making it a playground for other forms. The
Celts sometimes even placed such tendrils, or again
palmettes, in a similar way on the head, breast, or
limbs of human or animal figures, while Scythians
actually went so far as to decorate an animal's body
by putting smaller animals, whether of the same
sort or not, upon it. A Greek, if set to decorate a
form of this kind, would limit his secondary design
to giving artistic emphasis to its curves and axial
lines. Detail in this piece is no less peculiar the
swollen ribbon running
diagonally across the
"almond," and espe-
cially the recurrence of
the " fan " on the field
formed by the likewise
fan-shaped smaller end.
The relation here between fan and tendril is most
remarkable,and is perhaps best explained by a sche-
matic translation into terms of Greek design [Fig.].
In Greek ornament, the " axis " between a main
tendril and a branching twig is an open space,
often filled by palmettes : in Celtic decoration, it
closes up into a compact form of its own. Another
good example is given on PLATE II, C, the decorated
band, reproduced in development, that encircles
the terminal of a gold torque from the late fourth-
century chieftain's grave at Waldalgesheim in the
Rhineland. Here some distinctive phenomena of
" "
late-antique and Islamic ornament are antici-
pated by the Celts.
To sum up : a Greek tendril throughout its length
is always recognizable as a tendril; it is always
carefully separated from everything that may be
growing out of it. One can cut off the twigs, the
palmettes, the flowers-the tendril itself remains.
A Celtic tendril, however, grows throughits flowers ;
if we cut it into pieces, it dissolvesinto " fan " forms
and mere fragments of itself. A further important
feature displayed by the North Italian piece is the
design to the left of the diagonal tendril-stem on the
" almond " portion. It is a triangle with S-shaped
sides ; from the three points grow tendrils, one of
which runs dead against the rim of the field below.
This sort of triangle belongs to the Celts' repertory
of whirligig patterns and plays an enormous part in
their decorative art, both by itself and as a" trivium"
motif in a context of tendrils. But we can do no
more than hint at the problems here involved.
We have, anyhow, analysed some examples of
Celtic ornament, examining their classical prototypes
117
 Early Celtic Art
and trying to find out the positive Celtic features of
the renderings. But it is more important to go
further and discuss the meaning that lies behind
the various forms of ornament. " Ornament" is
only a thoughtless conventional modern term for
forms of geometric, floral, and in some cases also
animal origin. Actually, these things have a mean-
ing, and not only for primitive races but for the
Greeks as well, that meaning is fundamentally
magical or "symbolic. As its mode of expression,
" ornament has a value and importance which
is ever higher the less an art concerns itself with
the representation of the human form. This is also
true, for example, of the Migration Period. How
does Celtic art stand in this respect ? When, in the
eighth century B.c., the Greeks became acquainted
with Egyptian and Oriental art, they enthusiastically
took over all manner of representativetypes, and so
gave plastic forms of flesh and blood to the gods
and heroes of their mythology. How little should we
know of the Greeksin the most decisive phase of their
history if, out of all the wealth offered them from the
Orient, they had contented themselves with taking
only a few poor lotos-flowersand palmettes ! When
the Celts set out for southern lands, for their
onslaughts on Rome and on Delphi, they saw an
abundance of the works of classical art and crafts-
manship, and they appreciated and coveted them;
Attic painted cups and good figural bronze-work
have been found in Celtic graves in Germany and
France and, as we know from literary evidence,
there was a Celtic temple at Toulouse full of stolen
statues. But where in Celtic art is there any re-
flexion of this attitude to the achievements of the
South? There is only one single piece of Celtic
work bearing narrative figural decoration, a bronze
sword-sheath found at Hallstatt in Austria, with a
frieze of warriors, wrestlers and other groups of
figures. And this is beyond doubt a product of
exceptional conditions, namely the influence of the
metal-work of the Este region of Northern Italy,
in which such figural art takes a distinctive place.
The only other things that we can quote are the
life-size sculptures in the round found in a Celtic
sanctuary near Aix-en-Provence, and here, in the
hinterland of Marseilles, we must attribute their
peculiar style to the figural influence of the Iberian
art of Spain.
Where Celtic art was free from such alien in-
fluences, the representation of man is restricted to
mask-heads decorating bronze vessels, brooches,
girdle-hooks and the like, and to some rare life-size
sacred stone pillars or " menhirs " from South
Germany. The Janus-head of red sandstone, found
near Heidelberg [PLATEII, E, G] was probably the
top of such a pillar. The two flat, relief-like heads
are crowned by what is certainly a ritual head-dress.
Its form, closely following the outline of the skull,
displays a pair of those curving almond shapes
which, as we have already seen, are a popular motif
I18
in Celtic ornament. This type of head-dressin fact
occurs on many Celtic heads and masks. Between
the globular eyes is a clumsy nose; the forehead
is decorated by a three-petalled palmette. The
other head is even more ornamentalized. The
circular outline contains two curves-mere arcs.
There only remains of the human face the pair of
oblong eyes: nose and mouth have disappeared.
Such a stylized geometrical design has its parallels
among the masks of modern primitive peoples.
The average type of Celtic mask may be illus-
trated by the bronze girdle-hookfrom the Rhineland
chieftain's grave of Schwabsburg [PLATE II, B],
although the animal ears, recalling a GreekAchelous
or Silenus, are exceptional. Typical are the strong
prominent brows, often spiral-scrolled at the end
[cf. PLATE III, A], and the swollen cheeks, sharply
set off from the long-drawn-out chin. A more
isolated and individual piece is the head which
forms the lower end of the handle of a bronze
spouted flagon from the Waldalgesheim grave
[PLATE II, D]. The flanking ornament need not
concern us here, and the ritual head-gear we have
already discussed, but we should notice the man's
pendulous moustache, and his long pointed beard
shaped like a pod. His expression, like that of so
many Celtic masks, is at once sleepy and demoniac.
A chronological point of very great importance is
bound up with masks such as those visible at close
quarters on PLATE II, F. This is a vertical view of
detail on a gold torque from the grave of
Waldalgesheim; the masksare two in number, facing
one another. They are inserted into triangles left
between the convex tendril-decorated cross-ribbons
and the beaded horizontal border, and the important
point lies, not in the masks themselves, which do not
differ from other Celtic masks, but in this fact of
their insertion into a floral design. This is a con-
vention of the greatest historical importance, en-
abling us to draw conclusions essential for our
chronology. Such a combination of human masks
with floral or tendril designs is, of course, one of
the most frequent motifs in Pompeian and pseudo-
Pompeian decoration, and seems almost too familiar
to attract attention. But it is by no means of
immemorial antiquity, and a study of classical art
soon reveals its origin. This treatment of human
or Gorgon heads and masks was definitely an
invention of the Greek art of South Italy in the
fourth century B.C. Now of course the Celts might
well have arrived at the same notion by themselves,
but, as a matter of fact, there can be little doubt
that they borrowed it from South Italy. For, in this
same grave of Waldalgesheim, for example, was an
imported Campanian bronze bucket, decorated with
typical South Italian floral designs. And Celtic
renderings of some of these actual motifs appear on
another gold torque in the same grave. Here, then,
is compelling evidence for South Italian influence
on the Celts : the date of the bucket is late fourth
 A-

B, CF -D

E, F-

A-BRONZE MOUNTING OF A WOODEN VESSEL FROM NORTHERN ITALY (STAATLICHES MUSEUM FUR VOR- UND
FR(HGESCHICHTE, BERLIN); B-BRONZE GIRDLE-HOOK FROM SCHWABSBURG (ROMISCH-GERMANISCHES
ZENTRALMUSEUM, MAINZ); C-GOLD TORQUE FROM WALDALGESHEIM. FLAT PROJECTION OF A DETAIL
(CAST); D-HANDLE OF A FLAGON FROM WALDALGESHEIM (DETAIL); F-GOLD TORQUE FROM WALDALGESHEIM
(DETAIL). (PROVINZIALMUSEUM, BONN); E, G-JANUS-HEAD FROM HEIDELBERG. RED SANDSTONE (BADISCHES
LANDESMUSEUM, KARLSRUHE)

PLATE II. EARLY CELTIC ART


century, and thus we have, not only an origin, but a
date for the Celtic adoption of the mask-and-tendril
decorative convention.
These human representationshave introduced us
to " anthropology " in Celtic art : now we may turn
to its " zoology." The representationof the natural
animal is very rare in La Tene art. There is indeed
a clay flagon from a Rhineland grave of the same
period, as are all the pieces hitherto considered,
which bears a frieze of browsing deer, boars, hare,
and birds; this is probably a copy of Italian
bronze-work. But for the most part the Celtic
artist's animals are daemonic beasts of fancy. The
bronze coral-encrusted girdle-hook from Weiss-
kirchen [PLATE III, B] is very expressive of the Celtic
imaginative spirit. There is a lower zone with oblong
coral plaques set between narrow bronze border-
strips, a frequent La Thne device, as for instance,
on the British Museum's Lorraine flagons. On this
is a rectangular pedestal with a coral-inlaid lotos-
pattern derivedfrom some classicalsource. The main
decoration is cast in open-work, and has neither
coral nor enamel encrustation, the presence or
absence of this being of course a question of the
quality and value desired for the individual object.
Centrally placed on the pedestal glares a mask
with enormous bulging eyes and surmounted, not
by the usual double-almond-shapedhead-dress, but
by a pair of mighty spirals. These reach out like
bridges to connect up with the flanking members
of the design-four fantastic winged gryphons. The
inner pair have their heads turned backwards over
their wings to face the centre, and squat, in a most
uncomfortable (and most unclassical) manner, with
their hind legs crouched on the pedestal and their
fore legs standing off it. The outer pair are also
squatting, but with their bodies facing inwards and
their heads similarly turned back to face outwards.
These terminate the design. All four gryphons are
stylistically cramped by the ritual curls of the
ornament upon them. The whole conception seems
to breathe an extraordinarily Oriental atmosphere.
One would really rather call it Chinese than Greek,
and that it has in fact imbibed Oriental influences
may be shown by stylistic comparison.
We may take first of all the beast-handles on the
London pair of flagons from Lorraine, of which the
same is true. The handle-form [PLATE III, D] is
that of a rod which passes into a different shape at
either end. At the bottom it terminates in a mask
(unrecognizable in the side view shown here). The
curve of the rod itself bears stylized palmettes
formerly encrusted, like much of the flagon's other
ornament, with red enamel. Rod though it is, it is
flecked all over with engraved strokes to represent
an animal's pelt, and at its upper end it develops
into a real beast, putting its fore-legs on to the mouth
of the flagon and stretching its fiery-eyed wolf's-head
forwards. Through its teeth runs a chain attached
to the flagon's stopper, and along the nape of its
Early Celtic Art
extended neck runs a conventionalized mane,
executed like the palmettes lower down. Now
classical Greekart gives an animal-handlean entirely
natural form. A Greek handle-beast is a beast from
head to tail. But our Celtic handle follows the
Oriental, the Persian manner. It remains in parts
a dead mass and only in parts does it become alive ;
there is always a portion which remains purely
utilitarian.
Another feature of our animals hinting at the East
is the spiral stylization of the ears and the joints of
the legs [PLATE III,B, D]. There are many other
examples of the " ornamentalizing" of animal
bodies (and, as we have seen, even the human
body) in Celtic art. All this is thoroughly un-Greek
and Oriental. Greek art from its very beginning
had a great respect for the human body and its
shape ; since its Geometric age, it had been growing
amid a race of athletes, while the palaestra was of
course unknown among Orientals. And at animals
likewise the Greek looked with the eye of a con-
noisseur and an anatomist. Not so the East. There,
the natural animal becomes the heraldic beast.
There are indeed wonderful natural animals in
Oriental art as, for instance, the wounded lions from
the frieze of the palace of Nineveh which are among
the greatest animal portraits in the world. But the
heraldic beast is the Orient's eternal creation. And
the beauty of these creaturesis not decorative only;
their abstract and austere rigidity endows them with
the magic character of Apocalyptic. The little
motifs we are discussing here are elements in pre-
cisely this eternization of the natural animal. Its
phenomena are widespread in Oriental art through
time and space, from the Mediterranean coast and
the Black Sea to China, and from the Bronze Age
down to the art of Islam. Within this tremendous
span, it was the art of the Persians and of the
Scythians, as we find it in the fourth century, that
gave the Celts their model. This can be shown by
many details. PLATE III, A is a detail of the gold
torque from the chieftain's grave of Rodenbach in
the Palatinate, an elaborate masterpiece not inferior
to anything Persian, or indeed anything Greek or
Etruscan. Its diameter is 6.5 cm. only, so it must
have been worn by an elegant woman. The lower
third of the ring, not figured here, is plain except
for a few floral patterns in relief. The lavish decor-
ation is double-sided, front and back executed with
equal care. Above, the ring is contoured by an
ornamental row of " egg-cups." The caesuras are
formed by Janus-head masks, larger in the middle
and smaller at the side. Between them, and con-
nected in a manner recalling the Weisskirchen
design on PLATE III, B, are four crouching animals
with their heads turned backwards; they are
magnificent cross-breeds, with eagle heads, ibex
horns, head-curls like the Weisskirchen gryphons,
and the divided hooves of a deer or goat. On neck
and breast rows of beads hang down like garlands.
121
Early CelticArt
The only parallel to this unique motif is afforded by
the Scythian animal carved in bone from the Black
Sea coast shown on PLATE III, c, clear evidence
for these Eastern connexions of Celtic art. Another
proof is given by the widespread La Thne technique
of coral and enamel encrustation, coral being a
Celtic substitute for the red semi-precious stones,
such as almandine, used as inlay by the Orientals.
Greek art, on the other hand, is economical in its
use of coloured accents.
By means of purely stylistic analysis we have
found that Celtic art, save for its geometric Hallstatt
survivals, is nourished by two sources, one issuing
from Greece but reaching the Celts indirectly by
way of Italy, and the other bringing very different,
un-Greek elements from a yet undefined region of
the Orient. But the importance and beauty of Celtic
art does not depend on these basic elements in
themselves. It lies in the artistic power of the Celts
who shaped with masterly independence a real style
out of these ingredients, and brought them, despite
their differencesin time and space and racial spirit,
on to a single unique stylistic denominator. Yet our
observationson style stand at present in a vacuum :
we must now try to set them against the background
of history.
Objects of the kind and style of those we have
analysed have been found from Bulgaria to Spain
and from Italy to Britain. We need no commentator
to tell us that an art of such distinctive quality and
strength must be based on a national individuality,
and cannot be the product of gipsy craftsmen
wandering through Europe and living on what they
might casually learn from their hosts. The con-
nexion of all these things with the Celts is the
absolutely certain result of the work that prehistory
has done during the last half-century. Our know-
ledge of the Celts, their early history, their abodes
and their migrations, is based on a combination of
scarce literary evidence with the results of the
excavation of graves and settlements. Here we
are concerned with the period to which the pieces
we have been discussing belong. The question is,
are our stylistic observations compatible with the
facts of history ? Or, to put it more precisely, are
the influencesfrom Italy and from Eastern (Scythian
or Persian) art historically possible and probable ?
In 387-6 B.C. the Celts besieged Rome ; in 279 B.C.
Delphi. Before their onslaught on Rome they had,
as Polybius relates, been living for some time in
the valley of the Po, in friendly, neighbourly contact
with the Etruscans. Here were the conditions for
the transition of many elements of culture and for
technical and artistic teaching, for the Etruscans
were superior goldsmiths. It goes without saying
that masterpieceslike the gold torque on PLATE III, A
demand of the craftsmana long and careful appren-
ticeship. There exist strikingarchaeologicalwitnesses
to prove this -some small gold plaques found in a
cemetery at Bologna. They date from about
122
430 B.C., and while closely following Etruscan
models in technique and style, display a slight
deflexion towards the Celtic which inevitably gives
the idea of a stage that might be called "Proto-La
Tene." As for the Eastern connexion, when in
279 B.C. the Celts tried to capture the Delphic
sanctuary, they did not set out from abodes in
Southern Germany or Bohemia to march straight
to Greece, but, as we know from ancient writers,
Celtic tribes had for decades previously been
wandering about in the Balkans. The civilization
and art of those regions, as far north as Hungary,
was during the fourth century B.C.dependent on the
Scythians,and so the Celts here had the opportunity
of taking over those Scythian elements which we
have perceived in the La Tene style. And Persian
motifs as well, for Persian imports have been found
in graves of this period in Bulgaria.
All that we can take for granted is this : the Celts
during the time between the sieges of Rome and of
Delphi covered an immense area of Europe, certainly
not dwelling in a compact zone, but widely spread
out and in contact at many points with the various
civilizations of the Mediterranean world. The
different tribes must have been in contact with one
another, and what had been learnt from more highly
cultivated neighbourscould thus be passedfrom tribe
to tribe. Yet not only general reasoning, but per-
ception of the amazing equality of achievement in
the best Celtic work, especially metalwork,inevitably
suggests the idea of a few centres of art and crafts-
manship. The idea demands the existence of Celtic
towns, where able workers could copy Italian and
Eastern products ; where shops could sell not only
Celtic gold and bronze work, but imported goods
likewise: Attic vases, Etruscan bronze vessels
and tripods-and wine and fruit as well; where
barbarian customers could come from afar to do
their trafficking. Life must have been peaceful
there, for it is unlikely that a nation wholly in a
state of migration and warfare should have been
able to create such a style and to produce such perfect
work. If such a " Latbnopolis"-or a number of
such-existed, where was it ? All we can say is that
it must have been situated where the twin currents
from Italy and the East could come together in a
single meeting-place, somewhere in Central Europe.
Ancient literature gives us no help in evidence
for Celtic civilization before the first century B.C.
and the masterly picture drawn by Julius Casar.
But can teach us enough, if we can
learnarchaeology
its lessons.
To sum up Celtic art, in spite of its classical
models, repudiates narrative and epic represen-
tation ; the image of man is restricted to poor and
primitive sacred pillars. Decoration is bare of
natural organic life; its tendency is towardsinvolved
and maze-like patterns, and these are rich and
sophisticated and not at all primitive. Masks
A-GOLD TORQUE (DETAIL) FROM RODENBACH, DIAM. 6.5 CM. (MUSEUM FUR DIE PFALZ, D-BRONZE BEAK-FLAGON (DETAI
SPEYER) ; B-BRONZE GIRDLE-HOOK FROM WEISSKIRCHEN (ROMISCH-GERMANISCHES OF A PAIR (BRITISH MUSEUM)
ZENTRALMUSEUM, MAINZ) ; C-ANIMAL CARVED IN BONE, FROM TAMAN, SOUTHERN
RUSSIA (STAATLICHES MUSEUM FUR VOR- UND FRUHGESCHICHTE, BERLIN)

PLATE III. EARLY CELTIC ART


and animal-motifs express wonder and fear of evil
spirits, a vague religious feeling, innocent of all
demand for gods and heroes in concrete or plastic
form. Such was the spirit of Greek art about 70oo0B.C.
Such, too, was the art of the other Dark Ages a
dozen centuries later.
TITIAN: NOTES ON THE VENICE
EXHIBITION BY CHRISTOPHER NORRIS
cc4i ITIANUS FECIT FECIT."-Seventy
at least of his finest works, produced
in as many years, and here hung in
the Ca Pesaro, form what must surely
rank as the grandest one-man show
on record. Every Titian in a church at Venice,
with the exception of the Assunta, has been here
brought together, to provide, with a host of other
great pieces, a statement of standard quality before
which those more recently baptized with the
master's name come up for judgment.
How often in the darkness of the Gesuiti, S. Lio
or S. Salvador, has one not wished to have the
St. Lawrence, the St. James, the Transfiguration,or
the Annunciation, out on the piazza ! Adequately
spaced, and hung with a careful employment of
side-lighting, the exhibition shows what may be
made of this-especially for Venetian pictures, as
opposed to the overhead system. From the repre-
sentative standpoint the exhibition is almost too
small. Even in this wealth of material there is per-
haps not enough to show the whole power of the
master's imagination, though it is probably not the
fault of the organizers that there should be none of
the early or later "Poesie," from this country,
Spain, or the United States. One sees, neverthe-
less, a great number of masterpieces, and it is easier
to enjoy their quality and technical virtuosity on the
spot than to do real justice to the Aretino or Pope
Paul III here ; in any case there is not space avail-
able, and it might be more useful to criticize the
weaker points than to write peans in praise of great
pieces whose virtues are already well known. The
Exhibition gives an impression of the grandeur and
progess of Titian's technical methods, of those
qualities which made him the master of Rubens,
Vandyck and Velazquez, a selection of some of the
grandest of the world's portraits, and an unforget-
table impression of the man who, if not the world's
greatest painter, was yet surely paint's most inspired
technician.
(No. 2.) Christ carrying the Cross, Chiesa di San
Rocco, Venice. Any arbitrary conclusion in favour of
Titian or Giorgione would seem difficult in view of this
picture's condition. In support of Vasari's statement,
something in the general quality of the head of Christ
might be interpreted as in favour of Titian.
(No. 4.) Tobit and the Angel, S. Caterina, Venice
Early Celtic Art
Celtic art in the perspective of world-history is
the first great contribution of the Barbarians to art
in Europe. Here we have been concerned with its
first main phase: the Continental phase of its
initial formation. In a second essay we hope to
deal with its prime : Celtic art in the British Islands.
(? 1i507). The late Baron von Hadeln was the first
modern critic to recognize the real beauty of this paint-
ing which stands out as one of the surprises and most
important early works of the Exhibition. The breadth
of composition, the thick rich quality of the Giorgion-
esque landscape, the Angel's drapery, or the painting
of the dog should be sufficient answer to those who
have doubted.
(No. 8.) The Christ Child between St. Andrew and
St. Catherine,S. Marcuola, Venice. This unsatisfactory
picture raises the question of the size of Titian's studio
and the date of its beginnings. Allowing for poor
condition and in spite of sporadic quality, the main
lines of the composition seem beneath the dignity of the
master's own standard.
(No. 1x 2.) The Virginappearingto St. Francis,St. Blaise,
and donor, Museo Civico, Ancona (1520). Hung to
greater advantage than in London and showing all the
richness of the master's technique when painting on
panel, this stands out as a masterpiece of harmony in
grouping and richness of colour.
(Nos. I3-I 7.) The Brescia polyptych. The Resurrec-
tion, Annunciation,and St. Sebastianfrom S.S. Nazaro e
Celso (1520-22). The scroll of the Angel, perhaps the
first echo of the balancing theme of the Wisdom,the
quality of Averoldo's head, the softness of the shadows
and richness of the lights, the rhythmical balance of the
Sebastian, these are only some of the several beauties
of this altarpiece. In exceptionally fine condition, it is
available for the first time for close study.
(No. 22.) The Assumption,Duomo, Verona (c. 1535-
40.) It seems difficult to believe that this picture should
be so early as is generally supposed. The Madonna is a
forerunner of that shown in the Medole altarpiece and
much in the composition favours the later date suggested
by Crowe and Cavalcaselle.
(No. 24.) S. GiovanniElemosinario,S. Giovanni di
Rialto, Venice (1530-35). For the first time easily
accessible, this painting, with its rich tones of white,
crimson, and green, with a technique showing the first
signs of a later style, appears as one of the great pieces
exhibited.
(No. 30.) The "Allegory of D'Avalos," Louvre
(c. 1532). In spite of its qualities of composition and
passages of fine painting, certain faults of drawing,
the scarf over the woman's shoulder, or the ear of the
nymph advancing, show Titian's studio to have had
some part in this picture.
(No. 31.) Doge AndreaGritti,Count Czernin, Vienna.
In spite of the impressive scale, this portrait is in many
ways curiously unsatisfactory, the balance of the out-
line-a quality so dear to Titian-seems at fault on the
I27