The Golden Age of Irish Art: The Medieval Achievement, 600-1200

by Harbison, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780500019276
• ISBN10: 0500019274
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc

Summary

In the fields of manuscript illumination and luxury metalwork, Medieval Ireland led the world. This flowering of the arts had a religious context, with powerful Irish monasteries producing illuminated Gospels such as the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow, as well as a host of vessels, reliquaries, and crosses that includes the Tara Brooch and the Ardagh Chalice. The bizarre imagination, minute detail, and decorative invention that made this art seem to be "the work of angels rather than men" is still unequaled. But fascinating as it is, most is so scantily documented that it has long been a controversial topic for scholars. The Golden Age of Irish Art is the first serious assessment of the subject since 1945. In the last fifty years, painstaking research has added a wealth of new information and fresh insight, and Peter Harbison, the acknowledged authority on Medieval Irish archaeology, examines the art of the entire period. This up-to-date account, with over 250 illustrations of illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, architecture, and sculpture, is the most lavish and authoritative survey available on the subject.

Author Biography

Peter Harbison is Professor of Archaeology at the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts and Honorary Academic Editor of the Royal Irish Academy.

Table of Contents

Preface	7	(4)
Prehistoric Forebears	11	(4)
Early Christian Rebirth	15	(18)
The Cathach and early manuscripts	27	(3)
Metalwork up to c. 650	30	(3)
The Seventh Century	33	(34)
The Book of Durrow	36	(31)
The Eight Century--An Apogee	67	(20)
The Tara and Hunterston Brooches	70	(2)
The Lough Kinale Book-shrine and the Steeple Bumpstead Boss	72	(1)
The Donore Hoard	73	(10)
The Ardagh Chalice	83	(1)
The Derrynaflan Hoard	84	(3)
Manuscripts of the Eighth and Early Ninth Centuries	87	(46)
The Pocket Gospel-Books	88	(11)
The St Gall and Turin Manuscripts	99	(3)
The Book of Kells	102	(31)
Metalwork of around the Year 800	133	(17)
`Tomb-shaped' Reliquary Shrines	133	(1)
The Moylough Belt-shrine	134	(1)
Brooches	135	(2)
Shrine Fragments	137	(11)
St John's (Rinnagan) Crucifixion Plaque	148	(2)
Stone High Crosses of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries	150	(41)
Kells Crosses	158	(2)
Monasterboice Crosses	160	(2)
Durrow and Clonmacnoise Crosses and Inscriptions	162	(3)
The Ahenny Group of Crosses	165	(2)
Castledermot and Moone Crosses	167	(24)
The Early Churches	191	(18)
Oratories of Gallarus Type	194	(1)
Early Churches of Stone	195	(14)
Towards the Turn of the Millennium	209	(40)
Ninth-and Tenth-Century Brooches	213	(2)
Crozier Reliquaries--Eighth to Tenth Centuries	215	(31)
Round Towers	246	(3)
The Eleventh Century and the Rise of Dublin	249	(22)
Eleventh-Century Book-shrines	261	(3)
Eleventh-and Twelfth-Century Manuscripts	264	(5)
Church Reform and its Consequences	269	(2)
Late Eleventh-and Twelfth-Century Metalwork	271	(29)
Croziers and Crozier Reliquaries	271	(2)
Bell Shrines	273	(1)
The Cross of Cong	274	(21)
The Shrine of St Lachtin's Arm	295	(1)
St Manchan's Shrine	295	(1)
The Breac Maedhog	296	(1)
Crucifixion Plaques and Crucifixes	297	(3)
Twelfth-Century Churches and Crosses	300	(49)
Cormac's Chapel and Related Churches	300	(7)
Twelfth-Century High Crosses	307	(14)
Later Romanesque Churches	321	(5)
Twelfth-Century Architectural Scuplture	326	(19)
The Nuns' Church, Clonmacnoise-Tuam-Clonfert-Killaloe	345	(4)
Epilogue	349	(2)
Bibliography	351	(9)
Photo Credits	360	(1)
Index	361