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

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The Reconstruction of an English Carmelite Missal

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 manuscript of 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

Psalter fame, andJohn Siferwas, the chief illuminator of the Sherborne Missal 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 manuscript with 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 sufficient resemblance to either of these two styles to suggest the possibility of its belonging to the missing part of the reconstructed manuscript. 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 BURLINGTON MAGAZINE.

22 See THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, LXVI (January, 1935], P. 40. 3 Harl. MS. 7026 in the British Museum.

24 For a discussion of this style, see MILLAR-: op. cit., p. 29 seq.

EARLY CELTIC ART BY PAUL JACOBSTHAL' 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 undercurrents in the Roman or Romanesque art of Spain.

With Scythian art it is otherwise. In the first place, its effective range was extraordinarily wide:

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-style expresses a 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 expansion which 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

1 Translated, in collaboration with the author, by C. F. C. Hawkes.

II3

Early Celtic Art

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 possibilities of 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 repertory elements 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

receiving. In the Hallstatt period, immediately preceding that of La Thne, southern imported forms already occur, but they stand out like isolated foreign words in the language of their northern surroundings. 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 Greek inspiration, 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 understand the 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 Eygenbilsen in 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-flowers have 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 Kunstwollen in a much more positive way. PLATE I, D is a bronze disc, found in the Marne region. There is a plain central boss and round it four bosses decorated with enamel cell-work arranged 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-flowers formed of two outward-curving petals, while the inner zone around the central boss is filled with complicated openwork, 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

I14

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

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 entirely intentional 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

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 through its flowers ; if we cut it into pieces, it dissolves into " 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

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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 representative types, and so gave plastic forms of flesh and blood to the gods and heroes of their mythology. How little should we know of the Greeks in 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-flowers and 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 [PLATE II, 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

in Celtic ornament. This type of head-dress in 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-hook from the Rhineland chieftain's grave of Schwabsburg [PLATE II, B], although the animal ears, recalling a Greek Achelous 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 masks are 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

I18

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

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 representations have introduced us to " anthropology " in Celtic art : now we may turn to its " zoology." The representation of 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 derived from some classical source. 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-shaped head-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

extended neck runs a conventionalized mane, executed like the palmettes lower down. Now classical Greek art gives an animal-handle an 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 creatures is 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.

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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 differences in time and space and racial spirit, on to a single unique stylistic denominator. Yet our observations on 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 influences from 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 masterpieces like the gold torque on PLATE III, A demand of the craftsman a long and careful appren- ticeship. There exist striking archaeological

witnesses to prove this -some small gold plaques found in a cemetery at Bologna. They date from about

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 neighbours could thus be passed from 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

archaeology can teach us enough, if we can

learn 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 towards involved and maze-like patterns, and these are rich and sophisticated and not at all primitive. Masks

122

A-GOLD TORQUE (DETAIL) FROM RODENBACH, DIAM. 6.5 CM. (MUSEUM FUR DIE PFALZ,

SPEYER) ; B-BRONZE GIRDLE-HOOK FROM WEISSKIRCHEN (ROMISCH-GERMANISCHES ZENTRALMUSEUM, MAINZ) ; C-ANIMAL CARVED IN BONE, FROM TAMAN, SOUTHERN RUSSIA (STAATLICHES MUSEUM FUR VOR- UND FRUHGESCHICHTE, BERLIN)

D-BRONZE BEAK-FLAGON (DETAIL) FROM LORRAINE. ONE

OF A PAIR (BRITISH MUSEUM)

PLATE III. EARLY CELTIC ART

TITIAN: NOTES ON THE VENICE

EXHIBITION BY CHRISTOPHER NORRIS cc 4i 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

(? 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 Virgin appearing to 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. Sebastian from 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. Giovanni Elemosinario, 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 Andrea Gritti, 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

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 70oo0 B.C.

Such, too, was the art of the other Dark Ages a dozen centuries later.

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.