PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS (reduced.)
PART OF PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS (exact size.)
Most of these books are Psalters, or Gospels, in Latin, while the remainder consist of missals and other religious compilations, and of them all the Book of Kells is the most famous. It was written in the seventh century, and probably indicates the highest point of skill reached by the Irish artist-scribes, or as regards its own particular style of ornamentation, by any artist-scribes whatever. It is a book of the Gospels written (in Latin) on vellum, and the size of the volume, of the writing, and of the initial letters is unusually large. The leaves measure 13½ x 9½ inches. The illustrations represent various incidents in the life of Christ, and portraits of the Evangelists, accompanied by formal designs. Ornamentation is largely introduced into the text, and the first few words of each Gospel are so lavishly decorated and have initial letters of such size that in each case they occupy the whole of a page.
The book just described was preserved at Kells until the early part of the seventeenth century. It then passed into Archbishop Ussher's possession, and finally into the library of Trinity College, Dublin, where it is now treasured.
Of course it is impossible to give here a reproduction of a page of this marvellous book in its proper size and colours. Our illustrations, however, may convey a little idea of the accuracy and minuteness of the work, which, it is hardly necessary to say, was done entirely by hand, and will serve as a text for a brief summary of the chief features of Irish book art. The design here shown is composed of a diagonal cross set in a rectangular frame, having in each angle a symbol of one of the four Evangelists. The colours in this design, as reproduced by Professor Westwood in his Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts, principally consist of red, dark and light mauve, green, yellow, and blue-grey. The animals depicted are quaint, but not ridiculous, and the figure of St Matthew, in the upper angle of the cross, though stiff and ungraceful, is less peculiar than other figures in the book. The Irish artist was always more successful in designing and executing geometrical systems of ornamentation than in representing living figures.
The interlacing, which forms a large part of the design under consideration, is a characteristic of Celtic work. The regularity with which the bands pass under and over, even in the most complicated patterns, is very remarkable, and errors are rarely to be detected. The spirals which occupy the four panels at the ends and sides of the frame are also typical of this school of art. The firmness and accuracy of their drawing testify to the excellent eyesight as well as to the steady hand and technical skill of the artist.
The prevailing feature of Celtic ornament as shown in illuminated manuscripts is the geometrical nature of the designs. The human figure when introduced into the native Irish books is absurdly grotesque, for its delineation seems to have been beyond the artist's skill, or, more correctly, to have lain in another category, and to have belonged to a style distinct from that in which he excelled. At a later period, figure drawing became a marked characteristic of English decorated manuscripts, and English artists attained to a high degree of skill in this branch of their art.