Masters at Work: A History of Celtic Art

In our article on Celtic culture, we saw that the earliest recorded Celtic culture was part of the latter period of the Hallstatt Culture, which covered the majority of modern Austria, southern Germany, Switzerland and southeast France in the sixth century BC. In the fifth century, this culture spread out to encompass the Rhineland and eastern France, and thence to a large part of Europe. Examples of Celtic art have been found as far apart as Ireland, Spain and central Turkey, so you can imagine what the spread was like.

As I was saying, Celtic art emerged as a distinctive stylistic tradition in about 600 BC, and prospered till about the 1st century AD, when the expanding Roman Empire successfully subjugated Britain, France and Germany and thus obscured it. But in happier times for the Celts, their art flourished both in the Hallstatt Period as well as in the La Tène Period, which followed the Hallstatt. For the La Tène period, historian Paul Jacobsthal, in Early Celtic Art devised four main groups under which Celtic art could be classified: the Early Style, the Waldalgesheim Style, the Plastic Style, and the Sword Style.

The Early Style (about 480-350 BC) is important for finds made at Celtic graves in Germany and France. Discoveries from this period include stunning gold artifacts such as torcs and bracelets, based on Greek and Etruscan designs, and beautiful bronze pitchers bearing Classical and Oriental motifs such as lotus buds and acanthus leaves.

The Waldalgesheim Style (350-290 BC) is named after an evidently significant Celtic burial site near Bonn in Germany, and reflects Celtic expansion into Greece and Italy as new themes can be discerned on jewelry and chariot fittings. Though the Classical influence persists, there is a more characteristically Celtic interpretation of Classical models.

The Plastic Style (290-190 BC) sounds slightly derogatory, but the categorization is intended to reflect the fact that, in the western parts of the Celtic world, there was emerging a tendency to emphasize three-dimensional effects on artifacts. Moreover, human and animal imagery was becoming more prominent and consciously stylized.

The Sword Style (post-190 BC), common in the eastern parts of the Celtic world, is so named because of the discoveries of swords and scabbards bearing engraved decorations. The designs are geometric and abstract, in contrast to the ostentatious and figurative Plastic Style.

As has probably struck you by now, most of what we know of Celtic art today is thanks to discoveries made at burial sites, either as votive offerings, or buried for safe keeping. Like the ancient Egyptians, the Celts obviously followed the custom of burying their chiefs and leaders dressed up in their best ornaments, fitted out with their weaponry, and provided with all the food and drink they would need in the afterlife. And it is thanks to this custom that we have been handed down the several extant examples of Celtic art.

However, there is another source of knowledge about Celtic art that historians have explored. In addition to graves, Celtic peoples also left votive offerings in apparently sacred places as rivers, lakes, and artificial ponds, and these offerings represent another aspect of Celtic art.

Interestingly, Celtic art is almost always indicative of their creators’ principal day-to-day concerns. Thus, Celtic metalwork, which was of the highest standard, was used to create prestigious objects such as weaponry and jewelry as well as more utilitarian objects. Celtic metalwork has proved astonishingly durable and is stunningly beautiful, and involves the use of gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Sometimes, the craftsmen used gold and silver in conjunction to produce electrum.

Artists lavished their skills on important aspects of Celtic life such as armor, chariot fittings, daggers, swords, spears and shields. That Celts also loved to dress up is evident in discoveries of large caches of jewelry for both men and women, as well as some truly gorgeous mirrors. Similarly, feasting and drinking were important parts of Celtic society, so we have splendid drinking horns, mead vats, pitchers, bronze plates, and food bowls. As museums across the former Celtic world will testify, metalwork didn’t get much better!