Welcome to the dragon's blog...
Here you will find musings on the nature of Celtic art and perhaps some insights into its power and potential. Also, like a river, expect some meandering!
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Why is Celtic design flat?
by Unknown - 12:45 on 14 June 2014
Have you ever wondered why Celtic patterns (and other ethnic traditional art styles) appear flat? Why is it that this works so well and when modern artists introduce material perspective into designs it doesn't look / feel right? Is perspective, therefore, an advancement? Were the artists of the so-called 'dark ages' simply in the dark when it came to illumination?!
Over the next few hours (and possibly days!) I'm going to attempt to walk the maze of these questions...
So come back soon and follow this!
When I was examining and working with Celtic patterns recently a rather obvious thing occured to me. Although the designs often carry suggestions of physical form, they predominantly appear flat as if we, the viewer, are either looking down over them or observing from one side. In other words, there is no single, fixed perspective, angle or viewpoint that we find in later western drawings and paintings. Generally, the pure patterns (knots, mazes, spirals, etc.) are in 'plan' - we look from above - and the creatures, plants and other figurative forms are in 'profile' - we approach from the side. The so-called 'carpet pages' of the books of Kells and Lindisfarne show many good examples. Interestingly, other pages from these illuminated books, influenced by more literal styles of the time, show figures in rooms or similar settings drawn with a sense of a more fixed viewpoint. In such cases the perspective is crude and appears distorted.
Overall, so-called perspective in art gives us a series of fixed views and has developed in line with materialist societies. Celtic art with its mobile viewpoints creates a more imaginative realm. This is a simple but major key as to how and why it works! Furthermore, it could be that flat designs can show / illustrate / illumine / mirror more of reality. Through the use of certain patterns (knots, spirals, steps, mazes, figures) essential energies and qualities are revealed - which in themselves mirror life in endless array and permutation.
Returning to the Celtic patterns themselves: this floating viewpoint allows us to remain in the realms of poetry and the imagination - somewhere between the outer and inner - while still remaining true to the subjects. For example - birds and dogs are still drawn with a keen sense of relationship and observation. These creatures, however, are generally not shown as particular types of bird or animal but rather as the archetype of each. In other words - birds represent all birds. In fact the birds are usually never seen in flight but rather intertwined or forming an orderly queue within a border. This may also provide clues as to what the artists may have been getting at - which probably wasn't just one thing. In the case of birds: was it perhaps that they represented imprisoned souls forming endless procession through birth, life and death?
More to follow later...
I mentioned above that birds in the illuminated manuscripts (and other artefacts) that are found within borders or otherwise, are nearly always never in flight. Why is this?! If we explore the possibility that they show human souls, then this may suggest that the souls are imprisoned and are unable to fly. Is there a sorrowful aspect to them? The eagle, on the other hand, associated with St. John (the 'word'), is shown with outstretched wings...
Another consideration might be that it is easier and clearer to link or entwine birds when their wings are folded...
In the Book of Lindisfarne (folio. 139) one border containing birds has the ends made into the head and tail of a cat with the implication of birds falling prey to other beasts. Some might argue a hierarchical, religious or moral inference here also but there is, perhaps, some humour of sorts as well.
Celtic designs contain no fixed perspective and, like many other ethnic and cultural traditional art forms, are part of an ancient way of showing the relationship between inner and outer worlds. A purely material perspective is not needed and when it is introduced by contemporary artists, the patterns don't work in a full and natural way. They lose some of their natural power and become imprisoned in a literal world! Therefore the patterns have a strong poetic and magical character which has to be respected! Much like all of us really...
What do Celtic patterns (such as knots, spirals and steps) show?
This is the next question I shall be exploring!
Come back soon...
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