The Insular Tradition

by Catherine E. Karkov (editor), Robert T. Farrell (Editor), Michael Ryan (Editor)

A generously illustrated collection, The Insular Tradition explores the various ways in which tradition becomes part of our definition of insular culture and cultural history. The essays are the outcome of a conference held within the Medieval Academy of America meeting at Kalamazoo in 1991. Scholars from America, Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland came together to discuss the latest research on the remarkable Christian art which flourished among the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon peoples in the Early Medieval Period. New discoveries and a renewed research interest are shedding light on the splendid manuscript illuminations, sculpture, and metalwork of the time. Historical sources are reanalyzed and, together with modern approaches to interpretation, provide fascinating new insights into the social, economic, and spiritual background of the creative artists.

This book presents a number of challenging reinterpretations of landmark achievements such as the Book of Kells, the Irish High Crosses, and the enigmatic symbolic and decorative systems of the Pictish people of Scotland. The contributors discuss the processes of creativity, the way in which influences are transmitted, the cross-fertilization of the arts in different media, and the role of trade and exchange and of the patron.

Extensive illustrations, some of them difficult to source elsewhere, and comprehensive up-to-date bibliographies make the volume especially useful to those wishing to find a suitable point of entry into this expanding and ever-changing field.

307 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Catherine Karkov is professor of History of Art and head of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. Her research centres on early medieval art, especially Anglo-Saxon art, and she has published two monographs, one on Anglo-Saxon art, and one on the relation between text and image in Anglo-Saxon literature. In the latter, whose focus is on MS Junius 11, she argues that a complete edition of the manuscript leaves out the many illustrations at its own peril; these illustrations occur at dramatic moments in the four poems and help elucidate the allegorical import of many passages.