>I await correction, if not chastisement.
>
>Pippin?
>
Oh, how could I resist such an invitation?
My field is pre-Norman Irish metalwork rather than 7th century Irish
manuscripts, but I'll weigh in. Firstly, I have seen no evidence to suggest
that Byzantine monks were in Ireland (or not), but we don't need them there
anyway. The Coptic connection is also _much_ disputed among Insular art
historians, Martin Werner notwithstanding. A pity the Art Bulletin hasn't
published any further Insular articles since Werner's (and not for lack of
submissions, I understand). Also, in the early period it is difficult to
separate out specifically Irish decorated manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon ones.
The fight still continues about the Books of Durrow and Kells, and it has
more recently been suggested that Durham A.II.17 may be by an Irish scribe
rather than a native Anglo-Saxon as originally thought.
However, all that being as it may, iconography and style do not necessarily
go together, particularly when passing from a culture which accepts
figurative imagery to one which evidently did not until it was
Christianized - and even then kept its images very conceptual. We have to
allow that these highly intellectual scribes were sophisticated enough to
take what they wanted from their models and no more.
But even limiting ourselves to iconography, which Irish images are we saying
are Byzantine in origin? The Book of Durrow's Matthew symbol has nothing
Byzantine about it - it looks more like the front of a typical Irish
crozier. In the Book of Kells - the figures stand, cross their legs, have
ceremonial beards, and wear rather odd multicoloured clothes which emphasise
the unnatural position of their legs - these aren't Byzantine or Coptic
either. Byzantine Evangelists, such as those at Ravenna or in the Rossano
Gospels, or Coptic ones such as those in the Rabbula Gospels, are seated,
frontally or in profile, and wear white (ish). We have an Irish crucifixion
iconography with a pair of birds on Christ's shoulders, which to my mind
seems more Scandinavian than Byzantine or Coptic; and as for the carpet
pages, I will never forget my superviser long ago bursting out with - "now,
this is Nordenfalk going. off. his. rocker!"
So I'm not that convinced of the "Byzantine" connection except in the most
general terms - they must have got their original texts from somewhere
(Italy I should think, or somewhere between Ireland and there), but they
clearly had minds and agendas of their own.
Well - was this relevant? Why are we discussing Byzantine monks in Ireland?
C - was this your doing??
Pippin
Pippin Michelli, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Art History, St Olaf College
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/michelli/index4.html
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