Celtic Art - Celtic Revival

Celtic Revival

The revival of interest in Celtic visual art came some time later than the revived interest in Celtic literature. By the 1840s reproduction Celtic brooches and other forms of metalwork were fashionable, initially in Dublin, but later in Edinburgh, London and other countries. Interest was stimulated by the discovery in 1850 of the Tara Brooch, which was seen in London and Paris over the next decades. The late 19th century reintroduction of monumental Celtic crosses for graves and other memorials has arguably been the most enduring aspect of the revival, and one that has spread well outside areas and populations with a specific Celtic heritage. Interlace typically features on these, and has also been used as a style of architectural decoration, especially in America around 1900, by architects such as Louis Sullivan, and in stained glass by Thomas A. O'Shaughnessy, both based in Chicago, with its large Irish-American population. The "plastic style" of early Celtic art was one of the elements feeding into Art Nouveau decorative style, very consciously so in the work of designers like the Manxman Archibald Knox, who did much work for Liberty & Co..

Interlace, which is still seen as a "Celtic" form of decoration, somewhat ignoring its Germanic origins and equally prominent place in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian medieval art, has remained a motif in many forms of popular design, especially in Celtic countries, and above all Ireland, where it remains a national style signature. In recent decades it has been used worldwide in tattoos, and in various contexts and media in fantasy works with a quasi-Dark Ages setting. The Secret of Kells is an animated feature film of 2009 set during the creation of the Book of Kells which makes much use of Insular design.