The visual vocabulary of Celtic design distinctive and widely recognized in the world, a complex ornamental system in which spirals, triskeles, interlaced patterns, and stylized animal forms combine to produce designs of extraordinary density and visual power. The swirling triskeles of the La Tène metalwork, the intricate interlace of the Book of Kells, the great spiral ornaments of Newgrange, the key patterns of the high crosses, and the modern Celtic revival designs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries all belong to a single continuous tradition. To study Celtic knotwork and symbolism is to explore the design language that has come to define Celtic visual identity today, and to trace its long history from the late Bronze Age of central Europe to the global idiom of the present day. The motifs of the tradition are inseparable from the broader art historical context described in Celtic art and craftsmanship, and they are deeply connected to the metalwork, stone carving, and manuscript traditions that produced them.
The Celtic ornamental vocabulary is ancient. Some of its core motifs, including the spiral and the concentric circle, were in use in the European late Bronze Age, and the basic elements of the La Tène plant-scroll were already taking shape in the early Iron Age.
The Spiral
The spiral is the oldest and most pervasive of Celtic motifs. Concentric spirals carved into the great stones of Newgrange in the Boyne Valley of Ireland date from around 3200 BCE, long before the arrival of Celtic-speaking peoples in the region, and the motif is found across the ancient world from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia. In the Celtic context, the spiral takes on a particular significance as a marker of sacred space, of cosmic order, and of the relationship between the human and the divine. The triple spiral, or triskele, is carved on the entrance stone of Newgrange, the most famous of the Irish passage tombs, and the single spiral is found on hundreds of later Celtic stones and metalwork pieces.
The spiral appears throughout the La Tène tradition, in the great Celtic shield bosses, on the decorated sword scabbards, and in the brooches and torcs of the warrior elite. The Battersea shield, with its three concentric circles of curvilinear ornament ending in trumpet shapes, spectacular examples. The double spiral, the running spiral, the spiral broken by a transverse line, and the trumpet spiral are all standard La Tène variants, and they continue through the late Celtic and early medieval period into the high crosses and the manuscript illuminations of the insular tradition. The ancient Celts certainly regarded the spiral as a powerful symbol, but they almost certainly did not attribute to it the elaborate metaphysical meanings that modern New Age and Celtic revival literature often does.
The Triskele and the Triad
The triskele, the triple spiral, distinctive of Celtic symbols. Found at Newgrange and at many other Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the British Isles, the triskele was absorbed into the Celtic ornamental vocabulary and became one of the most important symbols of the Celtic world. The Irish and Welsh tradition of the triad, a grouping of three related elements that are commonly named together, is closely connected to the visual tradition of the triskele, and the two together formed a powerful symbolic pair.
The triadic structure is fundamental to Celtic thought. In the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the legendary history of Ireland, the island is said to have had three eponymous goddesses, Ériu, Banba, and Fódla. In the Welsh tradition, Britain is similarly said to have had three names, and the Three Folded Land of the Hibernians is a recurring theme. The triple death, the triple birth, the triple death by wounding, spear, and sword, and the many other triadic themes of the Irish sagas reflect a deep cultural pattern that is also visible in the triskele and the other triple motifs of the visual tradition.
The Christianization of the Celtic world transformed the triskele and the triad in important ways. The triskele was associated with the Christian Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the motif appears in this new context on many early Christian objects. The medieval Irish and Welsh traditions also absorbed many older triadic elements into a Christian framework, and the threefold death of the Irish tales was sometimes reinterpreted as a martyrdom.
The Interlace and Knotwork
The interlace, or knotwork, is the most distinctive feature of the insular art of the early medieval period, and it represents the most elaborate development of the Celtic ornamental vocabulary. The interlace of the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Durrow, and the high crosses of Ireland and Northumbria is of a complexity and a technical sophistication that has rarely been matched in the history of decorative art, and it forms a major part of the insular contribution to the broader history of medieval European design.
The interlace consists of a series of braided or plaited bands that cross over and under one another to form intricate, often symmetrical patterns. The bands are typically of equal width, and the patterns they form can be of extraordinary complexity, with several bands woven together in patterns that can take a master craftsman weeks to design and execute. The four-strand plait, the six-strand plait, the eight-strand plait, and the round plait are all common forms, and the most elaborate interlace, such as that of the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels, can include patterns of dozens of bands woven in ways that seem to defy the rules of geometry.
The insular interlace did not arise in isolation. It has clear antecedents in the late Roman and Coptic traditions of plaited ornament, and it also reflects the influence of the Anglo-Saxon metalwork tradition, particularly the treasure of Sutton Hoo, with its rich plaited gold and garnet inlay. The Celtic contribution to the tradition lies in the combination of the interlace with the older Celtic plant-scroll, the spiral, and the animal-form, to produce a distinctive hybrid ornament that is the defining feature of the insular style.
The Animal Style
The animal style of Celtic ornament, in which stylized animals and animal parts are combined into abstract and often grotesque decorative forms, distinctive features of the La Tène tradition. The Celtic animal style developed out of the Scythian, Thracian, and Eurasian steppe traditions of animal art, transmitted to the Celtic world through trade and contact, and it took on a uniquely Celtic character in the La Tène context.
The Celtic animal style is characterized by a number of distinctive features. The bodies of animals are often elongated and stylized, with exaggerated muscles, exaggerated horns, and exaggerated claws. The bodies of different animals are often combined into a single composite form, with the head of one animal attached to the body of another, and parts of multiple animals interlocking in a way that produces designs of extraordinary visual density. The horn and the claw are particularly important elements, and the Celtic zoomorphic ornament is often built around a single dominant horn or a pair of horns that develop into tendrils, spirals, or plant forms.
The most famous of the Celtic animal-style objects include the Battersea shield, the Witham shield, the Wandsworth shield boss, the Bermatingen scabbard, the Weiskirchen scabbard, the Mšecké Žehrovice head, the Gundestrup cauldron, and the Broighter collar. The animal style of these objects is often extremely stylized, with the original animal forms being barely recognizable, and the resulting designs are among the most striking and most original in the history of European art.
The animal style of the early medieval insular tradition is a direct continuation of the late Celtic animal style, and the animal interlace of the Book of Kells and the high crosses, in which stylized animal forms are combined with interlace patterns, is the late flowering of the same tradition. The Lions of the Book of Durrow, the feline and bird interlace of the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the elaborate zoomorphic ornament of the Book of Kells all show the persistence of the Celtic animal style into the Christian period.
The Key Pattern and the Step Pattern
The key pattern, a geometric ornament built around a series of interlocking right-angled shapes, is one of the most common motifs of the insular tradition, and it is closely related to the older step pattern of the late Celtic and Romano-Celtic world. The key pattern is built up from a series of T-shapes, L-shapes, and crosses that are arranged in regular registers, often filling the borders and backgrounds of the manuscript pages and the high cross panels.
The key pattern is one of the most abstract of Celtic motifs, and its origins are debated. Some scholars trace it back to the Greek key of the Mediterranean world, transmitted to the Celtic world through Roman contact. Others see it as a development of the step pattern of the late Celtic and Romano-Celtic metalwork, with its regular series of right-angled and rectangular elements. The insular key pattern, with its dense, complex, and often highly original arrangements, is in any case one of the most distinctive contributions of the insular tradition to the broader history of medieval ornament.
The step pattern itself, with its regular series of right-angled or staircase shapes, is one of the oldest of Celtic motifs, with examples dating back to the late Bronze Age. The step pattern was used extensively in the metalwork of the Hallstatt and La Tène periods, often in combination with the spiral and the plant-scroll, and it continued in use throughout the insular period, particularly on the metalwork of the Viking-age Celtic world.
The Plant-Scroll and the Vine Scroll
The plant-scroll, the vine scroll, and the tree of life are all closely related motifs in the Celtic ornamental vocabulary, and they are among the most important elements of the La Tène and insular traditions. The plant-scroll developed out of the palmette and the lotus of the Mediterranean and Egyptian worlds, transmitted to the Celtic world through trade and contact, and it took on a uniquely Celtic character in the La Tène context, with its tendrils, its lyre shapes, its trumpet shapes, and its complex arrangements of organic forms.
The vine scroll of the insular tradition is a continuation of the La Tène plant-scroll, with the addition of Christian elements including the inhabited vine scroll, in which human and animal figures are placed within the curves of the scrolling vine, and the tree of life, with its symbolic associations of paradise, immortality, and the renewal of life. The vine scroll of the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the high crosses is one of the most beautiful and most distinctive of insular ornamental forms.
The Symbolism of Color and Material
Color and material played an important role in the Celtic ornamental vocabulary, although the original colors of most Celtic objects have not survived. The Celtic smith used gilding, silvering, enameling, and inlay of coral, amber, glass, and colored stone to add brilliance and variety to the metal surfaces, and the surviving traces of original color on some metalwork, and the description of colored metalwork in classical sources, give a sense of the visual richness of the original objects.
The Celtic stone carver, similarly, used paint, gilding, and occasionally the natural color of the stone itself to enhance the effect of the carving. The high crosses of Ireland and Scotland were originally painted, and traces of original paint have been found on several examples, including the Ruthwell Cross, the Bewcastle Cross, the Ahenny High Crosses, and the Castledermot High Crosses. The colors of the original paint, typically red, blue, yellow, black, and white, were used to emphasize the carved forms and to add visual richness to the monument.
In the manuscript tradition, the use of color is particularly striking. The Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Book of Durrow use brilliant lapis lazuli blue, malachite green, red lead, and Tyrian purple to create a visual richness that has never been surpassed.
Symbolism in the Modern Celtic Revival
The modern revival of Celtic knotwork and symbolism, which began in the eighteenth century and reached its height in the nineteenth and twentieth, has produced a vast and complex body of design and writing on the meaning of Celtic motifs. The Victorian and Edwardian artists and designers who worked in the Celtic idiom, including the Arts and Crafts designers William Morris, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and their followers, were largely responsible for the modern association of Celtic motifs with elaborate symbolic meanings, including ideas about the interconnectedness of all things, the unity of the spiritual and material worlds, and the eternal continuity of the divine.
Many of these modern interpretations are of relatively recent origin, and the actual symbolic vocabulary of the ancient and medieval Celts was probably more open, more local, and more closely tied to specific religious and social contexts than the modern literature suggests. Yet the very openness of the Celtic ornamental vocabulary, the way in which it can accommodate a wide range of interpretations, is part of its appeal, and the modern tendency to read deep meaning into Celtic motifs is itself a chapter in the long history of the tradition.
The Celtic revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a major moment in the modern history of Celtic knotwork and symbolism, and the modern use of Celtic motifs in everything from tattoos to corporate logos is the latest phase in a tradition that has been continuously developed for at least three thousand years.
Related Topics
- The Celtic art and craftsmanship of which knotwork and symbolism are an essential part is examined in its broader context.
- The Hallstatt and La Tène art styles that provided the basic elements of the Celtic ornamental vocabulary are examined in detail.
- The Celtic metalwork and jewelry that used the Celtic ornamental vocabulary on a grand scale is examined through specific examples.
- The Celtic stone carving and high crosses of the late Celtic and early medieval period are an essential part of the tradition of Celtic knotwork and symbolism.
- The Celtic religion, mythology, and spirituality provides the religious context for much of the symbolism of the Celtic ornamental vocabulary.
- The Celtic legacy today includes the modern revival of Celtic knotwork and symbolism.