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Celtic Knotwork

In his book Celtic Knotwork, Ian Bain suggests that it was possible that the Celtic artists would have created a mystique around the creation of Celtic art in both pagan and Christian times. Keeping the construction of the designs a closely guarded secret, which gave its practitioners similar powers to those of the magician, or medicine man, or miracle-worker in the eyes of the beholder.

Durrow Cross

Interlace borders and panels are based upon the plaiting art of the Chinese as far back as a few thousand years BC Most peoples surrounding the Mediterranean, the Black and Caspian Seas. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Moors, Persians, Turks, Arabs, Syrians, Hebrews, and North African tribes have also used this form in one way or another on stone, metal and wood.

In the chronology of the Celtic ornamental symbols the knotwork design though to many the essence of Celtic art was actually the last to make an appearance. Scholars believe that the first cross-slabs to appear with multi-strand interlacing date from around the seventh century AD in Scotland and Ireland, the most famous of them being from Cardonagh and Fahan Mura. Through the centuries the Celtic crosses and stone slabs became decorated with very complex interlaced patterns and other equally intricate decoration and were painted with bright colours.

The earliest knotwork on stone slabs, metalwork and MSS. followed the rules of a continuous ribbon of knot, in later MSS. the continuity was not insisted upon. In the middle of the seventh century AD the first interlacing appears in insular book decoration on the colophon page at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel in a fragment of the Durham Gospels. This page has an unusual shape of three Ds, one on top of the other. The ability of the knotwork to expand or contract, like liquid filling a designated passage by adapting itself through necessary change in its pattern, made it a useful decorative tool for the Celtic scribe, whose skill gave it new dimensions of intricacy.

The only interlaced- work in Egyptian, Greek and Roman decorative art is the plait it was never modified. Derek Bryce in his book Symbolism of the Cross suggests that the breaks may have been included in order to imitate nature, which like a flower may look perfection from a distance but close inspection reveals that no one petal is the same.

Celtic interlace lasted longer through the centuries than any other style by the illuminator and was invariably the decoration which would be chosen rather than spiral, .key patterns and zoomorphics if it was to be used by itself to decorate large areas of vellum and stone.

The ’Thread of Life’ continues forever in a progression of lifetimes becoming more refined; complicated in its complexity. Where does it start and where does it end? The thread of life weaves its way continuously, as it has done from the very beginning - to end-to beginning- to end yet again. Life, is the Knot of the individual being. The unceasing unfolding of each of us can be seen in the knotwork patterns where past, present and future flow in an endless tapestry of life each of us contributing towards its construction and to its design in our daily lives.