Identifier: artsinearlyengla03brow (find matches)
Title: The arts in early England
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Brown, G. Baldwin (Gerard Baldwin), 1849-1932 Webster, A. Blyth (Adam Blyth), 1882-1956 Sexton, Eric H. L. (Eric Hyde Lord), 1902-1980
Subjects: Art Architecture Architecture, Medieval Church architecture Crosses Decoration and ornament, Celtic Inscriptions, Runic
Publisher: London, J. Murray
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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e-Celtic device of the divergent spiral withexpanding ends, sometimes called the * trumpet pattern, orreferred to as c flamboyant scrolls, that has an independentorigin and is a highly conventionalized rendering of the foliageornament of advanced classical times. This appears in Anglo-Saxon surroundings (p. 475 f.) but is of course in origin purelyCeltic. A splendid example of the ornament will be seen onthe Late-Celtic fibula from Aesica, PI. lii, 3. The close-coiled spiral does not, to the writers knowledge, occur in itsdistinctive form in purely Anglo-Saxon art of the Paganperiod, but PI. lii, 5, shows it worked in silver and brass oniron on a strap end in the Museum at Worms. It appears inthe Early Bronze Age in Denmark, PL cxli, 1,2 (p. 515), andis found about the same period in Ireland, as on the stonewith incised spirals at the mouth of the entrance to the tumulusat Newgrange by the Boyne, PI. lii, i. There is now a very LII facing p. 293 ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORNAMENT AND TECHNIQUE
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J, 6, 7, Q, are Continental; I is Irish SPIRAL MOTIVES 293 general consensus of opinion that the spiral motive was firstbrought into common use in Egypt and in the homes of theearly so-called Aegean culture, and that it spread from thereto the north-west of Europe either by the land route alongthe valleys of the Danube, Moldau, and Elbe, or round bythe ocean ways past Spain and Britain.1 It was accordinglydomesticated in our own part of the world before theRomans or perhaps even the Celts appeared conspicuouslyon the scene. It is worth noting here that a very common motive of themigration period, concentric circles, may very likely be adegenerate descendant of a series of spirals. An intermediatestage in the descent is represented by a set of circles withtangential lines joining them, a motive that occurs commonlyon the so-called £ geometrical or Dipylon vases found inGreece and especially in Attica and representing the next stagein the history of vase decoration after the Mycenaean.

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