An interdisciplinary collection of essays examining Irish and Anglo-Saxon art in the early medieval period.

A reprint of the 1987 book of proceedings of the first conference held on the theme in 1985. It contains 26 papers on various aspects of art in Irish Archaeology.

The International Conference on Insular Art (IIAC) is the leading forum for scholars of the visual and material culture of early medieval Ireland and Britain, including manuscript illumination, sculpture, metalwork, and textiles, and encompassing the work of Anglo-Saxon-, Celtic- and Norse-speaking artists. The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the eighth IIAC, which took place in Glasgow 11-14 July 2017. The theme of IIAC8 - Peopling Insular Art: Practice, Performance, Perception - was intended to focus attention on those who commissioned, created, and engaged with Insular art objects, and how they conceptualised, fashioned, and experienced them (with ‘engagement’ covering not only contemporary audiences, but later medieval and modern ones too). The twenty-one articles gathered here reflect the diverse ways in which this theme has been interpreted. They demonstrate the intellectual vibrancy of Insular art studies, its international outlook, its interdiscplinarity, and its openness to innovative technologies and approaches, while at the same time demonstrating the strength and enduring value of established methodologies and research practices. The studies collected here focus not only on made objects, but on the creative processes and intellectual decisions which informed their making. This volume brings Insular makers – the illuminators, pattern-makers, rubricators, carvers, and casters – to the fore.

"This collection of papers explores the artistic achievements of Early Medieval Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England and their continued resonance down to the Late Medieval period. Twenty-three interdisciplinary studies focus on a range of subjects from the world-famous Book of Kells to less well-known objects, such as Anglo-Saxon decorated pins. The presentation of recent discoveries and innovative research methodologies shed new light on familiar artworks, while more theoretical deliberations challenge traditional approaches to the study of this area. Almost without exception manuscripts, metalwork, sculpture and architecture are examined against their broader contexts--geographical, historical and cultural--illustrating the complexity of influences that contributed to the making and meaning of Insular art"--Jacket.

This book provides an invaluable historical document as well as the opportunity to listen once again to his incomparable, revelatory analyses of images through which he taught his students to see. Others can now follow the spellbinding lecturer as he works his way through an image, making us see what we had not, infecting

The book examines the lived experience of worship in early medieval England and Ireland, ranging from public experience of church and stone sculptures, to monastic life, to personal contemplation of, and meditation on, manuscript illuminations and other devotional objects.