page_title: Insular art
section_title: Insular decoration
hierarchical_section_title: Insular art / Insular decoration
caption_attribution_description: Image from the Book of Kells, a 1200 year old book. en:Category:Illuminated manuscript images
context_page_description: Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe. Art historians usually group insular art as part of the Migration Period art movement as well as Early Medieval Western art, and it is the combination of these two traditions that gives the style its special character.
  Most Insular art originates from the Irish monastic movement of Celtic Christianity, or metalwork for the secular elite, and the period begins around 600 with the combining of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon styles. One major distinctive feature is interlace decoration, in particular the interlace decoration as found at Sutton Hoo, in East Anglia. This is now applied to decorating new types of objects mostly copied from the Mediterranean world, above all the codex or book.
  The finest period of the style was brought to an end by the disruption to monastic centres and aristocratic life caused by the Viking raids which began in the late 8th century.
context_section_description: The Insular style is most famous for its highly dense, intricate and imaginative decoration, which takes elements from several earlier styles.  Late Iron Age Celtic art or "Ultimate La Tène", gave the love of spirals, triskeles, circles and other geometric motifs. These were combined with animal forms probably mainly deriving from the Germanic version of the general Eurasian animal style, though also from Celtic art, where heads terminating scrolls were common. Interlace was used by both these traditions, as well as Roman art (for example in floor mosaics) and other possible influences such as Coptic art, and its use was taken to new levels in insular art, where it was combined with the other elements already mentioned.
  There is no attempt to represent depth in manuscript painting, with all the emphasis on a brilliantly patterned surface.  In early works the human figure was shown in the same geometric fashion as animal figures, but reflections of a classical figure style spread as the period went on, probably mostly from the southern Anglo-Saxon regions, though northern areas also had direct contacts with the Continent. The origins of the overall format of the carpet page have often been related to Roman floor mosaics, Coptic carpets and manuscript paintings, without general agreement being reached among scholars.
caption: One of hundreds of small initials from the Book of Kells
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