From Ireland Coming: Irish Art from the Early Christian to the Late Gothic Period and Its European Context ed. by Colum Hourihane (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS117 This volume is an essential reference on Glastonbury and KingArthur, and those Arthurian scholars and small libraries rhat do not subscribe to Arthurian Literature (where many of the articles originated) will find it a major addition to their collections. Even for large libraries, the convenience of this anthology justifies its purchase. Glastonburystudies are alive and well, and this anthology provides ample testimony to the continuing fascination with this Arthurian locale. STEPHEN STALLCUP University ofNorth Carolina, Greensboro COLUM HOURiHANE, ed., From Irebnd Coming: IrishArtfrom the Early Christian to the Late Gothic PeriodandIts European Context. Index ofChristian Art/ Princeton University Press, 2001. Pp. xviii, 356. isbn: o—691-08825-x. $35. The contributions to this important volume, most ofwhich were presented at a 1999 conference, locate the Irish art-historical heritagewithin the broad context of European art and culture rarher than maintaining an isolationist Insular view. The volume begins with Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk's fascinating discussion of the visual parallels between figurai and narrative scenes on Irish high crosses and carvings on early Christian sarcophagi in Rome. The Irish delegation to Rome in theyear631 remarked onwhat theyhad 'seen' on theirvisir; ongoingIrish pilgrimages to Rome likely resulted in artistic influence on Irish artists, although sarcophagus motifs were adapted to the Irish cultural context. In another study of the high crosses, Colum Hourihane notes how the Irish adapted the motifofthe three children in the fiery furnace (from the Book ofDaniel) depicted on sarcophagi and in later Carolingian manuscripts and painting to stress the protecting wings ofthe angelic figure as symbolic ofsalvation. Kees Veelenturfsimilarly argues that the image of Saints Paul and Anthony receiving bread from a raven on the high crosses owes much to the iconography ofearly Christian Rome, including the sarcophagi. Jane Hawkcs suggests that across-head from Mayo Abbeywith its interlace andstanding figure shows affinities with both early Carolingian Gaul and Northumbria. Roger Stalley continues the interest in European connections in his discussion ofthe Irish round towers, relating them to the cylindrical bell towers oftwelfth-century France and Italy. Adapted to the Irish monasticsetting, theywere, heconcludes, tall enough for their bells to be heard over a large distance, thus drawing a rural community together. Several scholars shed new light on familiar objects. Cormac Bourke reinterprets the Temptation ofChrist scene in the Book of Kells, reading the lower panel as an empty table flanked by the monastery's fasting monks, and tracing this image to models in Northumbrian and Roman art. Mildred Budny's close analysis of Irish interlace in manuscripts places it in the context ofWestern European manuscript design. NiamhWhitfield reassesses dieTara brooch in light ofthe design and purpose of brooches of Germanic, Anglo-Saxon and even Byzantine origin, pointing out that as Irish rravel to Europe blossomed in the sixth century, die Irish encountered more foreign examples of metalwork. On the other hand, Emmanuelle Pirones ll8ARTHURIANA compellingdiscussion ofilluminated Insular Gospel books argues for their distance from Continental models: for rhe newly-literate Irish andAnglo-Saxons, she insists, the Latin Scriptures were exotic, mystically charged visual webs of signs that celebrated 'beyond all words, the central mysteryofdieWord' (279). Susan Youngss detailed analysis of an Irish gilt-bronze mount found in Kent enlarges our understanding ofViking trade in the ninth and tendi centuries. With hisdiscussionofRomanesque art, Peter Harbisonventures into the relatively uncharted territory ofpost-conquest Irish art. Although Cormac's Chapel is now recognized as the earliest example of the Romanesque style in Ireland, Harbison concludes that while borrowing some Romanesque features, twelfth-century adaptations on crosses, metal croziers and shrines remained distinctively Irish and tied to older Celtic models. Tessa Garten's study of human and animal heads in Irish Romanesque sculpture reaches similar conclusions: the Irish adopted the Romanesque style, but infused it with Celtic and Viking features. Susanne McNab stresses thelongevityofancient motifslike the non-realistic interlacedhuman figures, serpents and disembodied heads in much later Irish Romanesque art. The discussion also extends to later periods. Raghnall Ó Floinn examines Irish Gothic metalwork, particularly reliquaries and seals, after the Norman conquest. Heather King's discussion of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century stone crosses demonstrates the importance ofEuropean influences on Irish crosses ofthis period. Maggie McEnchroc Williams's article on the Market Cross atTuam...