Celtic Decorative Art from the Middle Ages
Chromolithographs of Celtic decorative art from the Middle Ages found in Polychromatic Ornament, the English edition of L’Ornement Polychrome by French illustrator Albert-Charles-Auguste Racinet (1825-1893). It was published in London by Henry Sotheran and Co. in 1877. It includes 100 plates produced by Firmin Didot of Paris, and an explanatory text translated from the original French.
Racinet wrote:
“Celtic is the name generally given to this style by those who have studied it most recently, but it is often called Anglo-Saxon. Some critics have decided that it is a mixture of the Scandinavian and Byzantine styles, but it is considered by others, especially by J. O. Westwood (see The Grammar of Ornament by Own Jones), as indigenous to the British Isles and the unassisted production of their primitive inhabitants. As essential characteristics of this style in its earliest period, the same writer mentions: first, the absence of all imitations of foliage or plants; secondly, the almost exclusive use of simple geometrical figures, interlacings or ribbons, diagonal spiral lines, etc.”
Racinet then goes on to recommend J. O. Westwood’s Facsimiles of Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts.
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–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern
