Art in Medieval Scotland

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The Class II Kirkyard stone c. 800, Aberlemno

In the

Pictish art was the only uniquely Scottish medieval style; it can be seen in the extensive survival of carved stones, particularly in the north and east of the country, which hold a variety of recurring images and patterns. It can also be seen in elaborate metal work that largely survives in buried hoards. Irish-Scots art from the kingdom of Dál Riata
suggests that it was one of the places, as a crossroads between cultures, where the Insular style developed.

Insular art is the name given to the common style that developed in Britain and Ireland from the eighth century and which became highly influential in continental Europe and contributed to the development of Romanesque and Gothic styles. It can be seen in elaborate jewellery, often making extensive use of semi-precious stones, in the heavily carved high crosses found particularly in the Highlands and Islands, but distributed across the country and particularly in the highly decorated illustrated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, which may have been begun, or wholly created at the monastic centre of Iona.

Scotland adopted the Romanesque style relatively late and retained and revived elements of its style after the Gothic style had become dominant from the thirteenth century. Much of the best Scottish artwork of the High and Late Middle Ages was either religious in nature or realised in metal and woodwork, and has not survived the impact of time and the Reformation. However, examples of sculpture are extant as part of church architecture, including evidence of elaborate church interiors. From the thirteenth century there are relatively large numbers of monumental effigies. Native craftsmanship can be seen in a variety of items. Visual illustration can be seen in the illumination of charters and occasional survivals of church paintings. Surviving copies of individual portraits are relatively crude, but more impressive are the works or artists commissioned from the continent, particularly the Netherlands.

Early Middle Ages

Main article: Celtic art

Pictish stones

Main article:
Pictish stones
The Dunnichen Stone, a Class I incised stone, with double disc and z-rod, mirror and comb and flower Pictish symbols

About 250 Pictish stones survive and have been assigned by scholars to three classes.

Pictish beast, everyday objects such as mirrors, combs and tuning forks and abstract symbols defined by names including V-rod, double disc and Z-rod. They are found between from the Firth of Forth to Shetland. The greatest concentrations are in Sutherland, around modern Inverness and Aberdeen. Good examples include the Dunrobin (Sutherland) and Aberlemno stones (Angus).[2]

Class II stones are carefully shaped slabs dating after the arrival of Christianity in the eighth and ninth centuries, with a cross on one face and a wide range of symbols on the reverse. In smaller numbers than Class I stones, they predominate in southern Pictland, in Perth, Angus and Fife. Good examples include Glamis 2, which contains a finely executed Celtic cross on the main face with two opposing male figures, a centaur, cauldron, deer head and a triple disc symbol and Cossans, Angus, which shows a high-prowed Pictish boat with oarsmen and a figure facing forward in the prow.[2] Class III stones are thought to overlap chronologically with Class II stones.[2] Most are elaborately shaped and incised cross-slabs, some with figurative scenes, but lacking idiomatic Pictish symbols. They are widely distributed but predominate in the southern Pictish areas.[2]

Pictish metalwork

Items of metalwork have been found throughout Pictland. The earlier Picts appear to have had a considerable amount of silver available, probably from raiding further south, or the payment of subsidies to keep them from doing so. The very large hoard of late Roman hacksilver found at Traprain Law may have originated in either way. The largest hoard of early Pictish metalwork was found in 1819 at Norrie's Law in Fife, but unfortunately much was dispersed and melted down.[3] Over ten heavy silver chains, some over 0.5 metres (1.6 ft) long, have been found from this period; the double-linked Whitecleuch Chain is one of only two that have a penannular ring, with symbol decoration including enamel, which shows how these were probably used as "choker" necklaces.[3] The St Ninian's Isle Treasure of 28 silver and silver-gilt objects, contains perhaps the best collection of late Pictish forms, from the Christian period, when Pictish metalwork style, as with stone-carving, gradually merged with Insular, Anglo-Saxon and Viking styles.[4]

Irish-Scots art

See also: Irish art
The front of the Hunterston Brooch, found near Hunterston, North Ayrshire, which shows Irish elements of style and may have been made in the kingdom of Dál Riata

pseudo-penannular brooches were adapted to the Pictish style, for example the Breadalbane Brooch (British Museum). The eighth century Monymusk Reliquary has elements of Pictish and Irish style.[7]

Early Anglo-Saxon art

Main article: Anglo-Saxon art

Early examples of Anglo-Saxon art are largely metalwork, particularly bracelets, clasps and jewellery, that has survived in pagan burials and in exceptional items such as the intricately carved whalebone

Culbin Sands, Moray and the Burghead drinking horn mount.[9] After Christianisation in the seventh century artistic styles in Northumbria, which then reached to the Firth of Forth, interacted with those in Ireland and what is now Scotland to become part of the common style historians have identified as Insular or Hiberno-Saxon.[10]

Insular art

Main article: Insular art
The opening page from the Gospel of John from the Book of Kells, usually thought to have been made in Iona.

Insular art, or Hiberno-Saxon art, is the name given to the common style produced in Scotland, Britain and Anglo-Saxon England from the seventh century, with the combining of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon forms.

canon tables and figurative miniatures, especially Evangelist portraits, are also common. The finest era of the style was brought to an end by the disruption to monastic centres and aristocratic life of the Viking raids in the late eighth century.[12]

Christianity discouraged the burial of grave goods so the majority of examples of insular metalwork that survive from the Christian period have been found in archaeological contexts that suggest they were rapidly hidden, lost or abandoned.

rock crystal among the commonest, and some garnets. Coloured glass, enamel and millefiori glass, probably imported, are also used.[16] None of the major insular manuscripts, like the Book of Kells, have preserved their elaborate jewelled metal covers, but documentary evidence indicates that these were as spectacular as the few remaining continental examples.[17]

The Monymusk Reliquary, made c. 750

The most significant survivals in sculpture are in

King David is relatively frequently depicted. In the east the influence of Pictish sculpture can be seen, in areas of Viking occupation and settlement, crosses for the tenth to the twelfth centuries have distinctive Scandinavian patterns, often mixed with native styles. Important examples dated to the eighth century include St Martin's Cross on Iona, the Kildalton Cross from the Hebrides and the Anglo-Saxon Ruthwell Cross.[18] Through the Hiberno-Scottish mission to the continent, insular art was highly influential on subsequent European Medieval art, especially the decorative elements of Romanesque and Gothic styles.[20]

Viking age art

See also:
Viking Age art
Some of the Lewis chessmen

Viking art avoided naturalism, favouring stylised animal motifs to create its ornamental patterns. Ribbon-interlace was important and plant motifs became fashionable in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Lewis Chessmen, from Uig, were probably made in Trondheim in Norway, but contain some decoration that may have been influenced by Celtic patterns.[29]

Late Middle Ages

Architecture and sculpture

Main article:
Architecture in Medieval Scotland
Effigy of Archibald, 5th earl of Douglas (1390–1439) in St Bride's Church, Douglas

Architectural evidence suggests that, while the Romanesque style peaked in much of Europe in the later eleventh and early twelfth century, it was still reaching Scotland in the second half of the twelfth century[30] and was revived in the late fifteenth century, perhaps as a reaction to the English perpendicular style that had come to dominate.[31] Much of the best Scottish artwork of the High and Late Middle Ages was either religious in nature or realised in metal and woodwork and has not survived the impact of time and the Reformation.[32] However, examples of sculpture are extant as part of church architecture, a small number of significant crafted items have also survived and, for the end of the period, there is evidence of painting, particularly the extensive commissioning of works in the Low Countries and France.[33]

The interiors of churches were often more elaborate before the Reformation, with highly decorated sacrament houses, like the ones surviving at Deskford and Kinkell.

Robert I's elaborate tomb in Dunfermline Abbey, which was made in his lifetime by the Parisian sculptor Thomas of Chartres, but of which only fragments now survive.[32] The greatest group of surviving sculpture from this period are from the West Highlands, beginning in the fourteenth century on Iona under the patronage of the Lordship of the Isles and continuing until the Reformation. Common motifs were ships, swords, harps and Romanesque vine leaf tracery with Celtic elements.[38]

Decorative arts

Main article: Sculpture in Scotland
The 12th century "Loch Shiel Crozier Drop", hollow for a relic, with the bust of a king.[39]

Survivals from late Medieval church fittings and objects in Scotland are exceptionally rare even compared to those from comparable areas like England or Norway, probably because of the thoroughness of their destruction in the Scottish Reformation. The Scottish elite and church now participated in a culture stretching across Europe, and many objects that do survive are imported, such as Limoges enamels.[40] It is often difficult to decide the country of creation of others, as work in international styles was produced in Scotland, along with pieces retaining more distinctive local styles.

Two secular small chests with carved whalebone panels and metal fittings illustrate some aspects of the Scottish arts. The Eglington and Fife Caskets are very similar and were probably made by the same workshop around 1500, as boxes for valuables such as jewellery or documents. The overall form of the caskets follows French examples, and the locks and metal bands are decorated in Gothic style with "simple decorations of

egg and dart" while the whalebone panels are carved in relief with a late form of Insular interwoven strapwork characteristic of late Medieval West Scotland.[41]

Key examples of native craftsmanship on items include the

Celtic church of treating the possessions rather than the bones of saints as relics. As in Irish examples these were partly reworked and elaborated at intervals over a long period. These are St Fillan's Crozier and its "Coigreach" or reliquary, between them with elements from each century from the eleventh to the fifteenth, the Guthrie Bell Shrine, Iona, twelfth to fifteenth century, and the Kilmichael Glassary Bell Shrine, Argyll, mid-twelfth century.[43] The Skye Chess piece is a single elaborate piece in carved walrus ivory, with two warriors carrying heraldic shields in a framework of openwork vegetation. It is thought to be Scottish, of the mid-thirteenth century, with aspects similar to both English and Norwegian pieces.[44]

One of the largest groups of surviving works of art are the seal matrices that appear to have entered Scottish usage with feudalism in the reign of David I, beginning at the royal court and among his Anglo-Norman vassals and then by about 1250 they began to spread to the

Glasgow.[32]

Illumination and painting

The Trinity Altarpiece, attributed to Flemish artist Hugo van der Goes for the Trinity College Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the late fifteenth century

Manuscript illumination continued into the late Middle Ages, moving from elaborate gospels to charters, like that confirming the rights of

Bishop of Glasgow, between 1484 and 1492[32] and the Flemish illustrated book of hours, known as the Hours of James IV of Scotland, given by James IV to Margaret Tudor and described as "perhaps the finest medieval manuscript to have been commissioned for Scottish use".[48]

See also

References

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  19. ^ D. M. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Art: From The Seventh Century To The Norman Conquest (Overlook Press), 1984, p. 118.
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