Anglo-Saxon art

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Shoulder-clasps from Sutton Hoo
Folio 25r from the Benedictional of Saint Æthelwold contains a miniature of the Baptism of Christ.
In this illustration from page 46 of the Caedmon manuscript, an angel is shown guarding the gates of paradise, after Adam and Eve have been expelled.
The Hedda Stone, an example of early Anglo-Saxon stone carving.

Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, particularly from the time of King Alfred (871-899), when there was a revival of English culture after the end of the Viking invasions, to the Norman Conquest in 1066, when the move to the Romanesque style becomes complete. Prior to King Alfred the Migration period style based on that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent is seen to superb effect in the metalwork and jewellery from Sutton Hoo (early 7th century).

After their conversion to Christianity, the fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic techniques and motifs, together with the requirement for books, created Hiberno-Saxon style, or Insular art, probably mostly drawing from decorative metalwork motifs. At about the same time as the Insular Lindisfarne Gospels was being made in Northumbria in the far north of England, in the early 8th century, the Vespasian Psalter from Canterbury in the far south, which the missionaries from Rome had made their headquarters, shows a wholly different, classically-based art. These two styles mixed and developed together and by the following century the resulting Anglo-Saxon style had reached maturity.

Anglo-Saxon art survives mostly in illuminated manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon architecture, a number of very fine ivory carvings, and some works in metal and other materials. Opus Anglicanum ("English work") was already recognised as the finest embroidery in Europe, although only a few pieces from the Anglo-Saxon period remain - the Bayeux Tapestry is a rather different sort of embroidery, on a far larger scale. As in most of Europe at the time, metalwork was the most highly-regarded form of art by the Anglo-Saxons, but hardly any survives - there was enormous plundering of Anglo-Saxon churches, monasteries and the possessions of the dispossessed nobility by the new Norman rulers in their first decades, and most survivals were once on the continent.

The manuscripts include the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold manuscript, which drew on Insular art, Carolingian art and Byzantine art for style and iconography. In the 11th century a 'Winchester style' developed that combined both northern ornamental traditions with Mediterranean figural traditions, and can be seen in the Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodl, 579). Anglo-Saxon illustration included many lively pen drawings, on which the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, in Canterbury from about 1000, was highly influential; the Harley Psalter is a copy of it. This is an example of the larger trend of an Anglo-Saxon culture coming into increasing contact with, and under the influence of, a wider Latin Mediaeval Europe. Anglo-Saxon drawing had a great influence in Northern France throughout the 11th century, in the so-called "Channel school".

Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, ivory, stone, metalwork (for example the Fuller brooch), glass and enamel, many examples of which have been recovered through archaeological excavation and some of which have simply been preserved over the centuries, especially in churches on the Continent, as the Vikings, Normans and Reformation iconoclasm between them left virtually nothing in England except for books and archaeological finds.

Anglo-Saxon iconographical innovations include the animal Hellmouth, and the ascending Christ shown only as a pair of legs and feet disappearing at the top of the image, both later used all over Europe.

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[edit] Metalwork

Anglo-Saxon metalwork had a famous reputation as far afield as Italy, but hardly any pieces have survived the depredations of the Norman Conquest in 1066, and the English Reformation.[1] The references to specific works by the monastic artist Spearhafoc, none of which have identifiably survived, are about works in precious metal, and he is one of a small number of metalwork artists from the period whose name we know and whose work is described in any way. According to several sources, including the Norman chronicler Goscelin, who knew him personally, Spearhafoc "was outstanding in painting, gold-engraving and goldsmithery", the painting very likely mainly in illuminated manuscripts. It was probably his artistic work which brought into contact with the royal family, and launched his rapid promotion in the church.[2] Even the imprecise details given, mostly by Goscelin, are therefore valuable evidence of what Anglo-Saxon metalwork was like. Anglo-Saxon skill in gold-engraving, designs and figures engraved on gold objects, is mentioned by many foreign sources, and the few remaining engraved figures closely parallel the far more numerous pen-drawn figures in manuscripts, also an Anglo-Saxon speciality. Wall-paintings, which seem to have sometimes contained gold, were also apparently often made by manuscript illuminators, and Goscelin's description of his talents therefore suggests an artist skilled in all the main Anglo-Saxon media for figurative art - of which being a goldsmith was then regarded as the most prestigious branch.[3]

Many monastic artists reached senior positions; Spearhafoc's career in metalwork was paralleled in less sensational fashion by his contemporary Mannig, Abbot of Evesham (Abbot 1044-58, d. 1066),[4] and at the end of the previous century Saint Dunstan had been a very successful Archbishop of Canterbury. Like Spearhafoc, Mannig's biography, with some precise details, is given in the chronicle maintained by his abbey.[5] His work also had a miracle associated with it - the lay goldsmith Godric stabbed his hand with an awl during the work on the large shrine at Evesham, which was miraculously healed overnight.[6] Spearhafoc and Mannig are the "only two goldsmiths of whom we have extended accounts", and the additional information given about Godric, the leader of a team brought in by Mannig for the shrine, is also unique among the surviving evidence. Some twenty years after the miracle, he joined the Abbey of Evesham, presumably in retirement, and his son later became Prior there.[7]

In the final century of the period a number of large figures in precious metal are recorded; presumably these were made of thin sheets over a wooden core like the Golden Madonna of Essen, the largest example of this type of Early Medieval figure to survive from anywhere in Europe. These appear to have been life-size, or nearly so, and were mostly crucifixes, sometimes with figures of Mary and John the Evangelist on either side. Patronage by the great figures of the land, and the largest monasteries, became extravagant in this period, and the greatest late Anglo-Saxon churches must have presented a dazzling spectacle, somewhat in the style of Eastern Orthodox churches. Anglo-Saxon taste revelled in expensive materials and the effects of light on precious metals, which were also embroidered into fabrics and used on wall-paintings.

While larger works are all lost, several small objects and fragments have survived, nearly all have been buried - among the few exceptions are the secular Fuller Brooch, and two works made in Austria by the Anglo-Saxon mission, the Tassilo Chalice and the Rupertus Cross. The Alfred Jewel is the best known of a group of finely-worked liturgical jewels. In 2009 the Staffordshire hoard, a major hoard of over 1,000 fragments of metalwork pieces, mostly gold, was found by a metal-detectorist in Staffordshire.[8]

[edit] Monumental sculpture

Apart from Anglo-Saxon architecture, which survives entirely in churches, with only a handful of largely unaltered examples, monumental stone sculpture survives in large stone crosses, an equivalent to the high crosses of the Celtic areas of Britain. The Anglo-Saxon crosses have survived less well, being more subject to iconoclasm after the English Reformation, but often featured larger figurative sculpture of considerable quality, as on the Ruthwell Cross and Bewcastle Cross. Vine-leaf decoration is more common than interlace, and there are often inscriptions as well. Parts of friezes and panels with figure carving have been recovered by archaeology, usually reused in rebuilding churches.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Dodwell:44-47, 61-83, 216ff
  2. ^ Dodwell:46 and 55, who quotes Goscelin, and Historia:ciii-cv for the other sources.
  3. ^ Dodwell:58, 79-83, 92-3
  4. ^ See Dodwell, passim
  5. ^ Gransden:65. History
  6. ^ History:159 and Dodwell:65-66
  7. ^ Dodwell:48, 80 and 65-67
  8. ^ Highlights of Anglo-Saxon hoard, The Independent, 24 September 2009, (retrieved 24 September 2009).

[edit] External links

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