Insular Art: The Book of Kells, Lindisfarne, and the Sacred Manuscripts of the Celtic North
On the windswept islands and rocky headlands of the northwestern edge of the known world — in Ireland, in the Scottish islands, in the kingdom of Northumbria in northern England — between roughly the sixth and ninth centuries CE, a group of monastic communities produced some of the most extraordinary objects in the history of human art. Their manuscripts — the Book of Kells , the Lindisfarne Gospels , the Book of Durrow , the Cathach of Saint Columba — are among the supreme achievements of medieval art anywhere in the world. Their metalwork — the Ardagh Chalice , the Tara Brooch , the Derrynaflan Paten — represents a peak of goldsmithing skill that has rarely been equaled. Their stone crosses — towering monuments carved with biblical narrative and interlace ornament — still stand in Irish churchyards and on Scottish moorlands, weathered but intact, fifteen centuries after they were erected. This body of work is called Insular art ("insular" from the Latin insula , island),...