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Irish Decoration

The Book of Kells is called “The Great Gospel of Columkille, the chief relic of the Western world” in the Annals of Ulster; this unique Hiberno -Saxon manuscript displays a rich treasury of densely packed decoration. Like the artistic accomplishment of the Ardagh Chalice it shows the Irish artists complete mastery over the medium they choose. Kells was probably started at Iona around 807 and then transferred with the relics of Columba to the new monastery at Kells, Co. Meath for safety from the raids of the Vikings.

Book of Kells

Eadfrith’s more realistic portrait pages in the Lindisfarne Gospels made a great impression on the other Hiberno -Saxon artists though none carried on from where he finished as it was a denial of their tradition and the Kells portraits reflect a compromise with their unrealistic faces and flat postures and a return to elaborate frameworks of ornamentation. Future books produced at the scriptoriums in the ninth century began to be influenced by Viking, Carolingian, English and Continental Romanesque and it marked the end of the true Celtic tradition.

The St. Gall Gospel book was probably written in Ireland in the mid eighth century and then taken by an Irish monk to the monastery at St Gall in Switzerland in the ninth century. The whole work is rather naïve in style with its Evangelist portraits staring rigidly forward and simple decoration that consists of spirals and animal- interlacing. The few colours used in the book are very bright and the whole work is very impressive.

MacRegol Gospels

The early ninth century Gospel of MacRegol is a richly decorated book that’s named after its scribe Mac Regol of Birr (d.820) who was the abbot of the relatively minor monastery at Birr . The artist had no use for compass and his work is irregular to the point of reckless in its improvisation. The ornament consists of interlace, step patterns and animal interlace, the colours are thickly applied.

Add. MS40618 belongs to one of the group of Irish pocket Gospels written in the second half of the eighth century. This incomplete Gospel book as only one full page illumination surviving which is the portrait of St. Luke standing full frontal, this portrait resembles a slightly earlier Book of Mulling. The decorative panels either side of the saint contain interlaced dogs; this decoration is very weak and looks hurried. It was brought to England in the tenth or eleventh century when it was completed by the scribe Eduardus in the Winchester style.

The Ricemarcus Psalter was written by Ithael and Levan who were the sons of Sulien, Bishop of St. David’s in Wales around 1079. Sulien (d.1091) had studied in Ireland and that influence is evident in the initials and decoration.