Most of the designs in our collection are Celtic knots, or Celtic interlace, patterns. Celtic knots are one of the most identifiable aspects of Celtic art even though they are a relatively late addition to the art of the Celts.

From the Bronze Age until today, Celtic art embodies a very well-developed use of form. This is especially evident in the curved and sweeping shapes that Celtic craftsmen created from the Bronze age until today. The mastery of line and shape sometimes stylized from plant or animal form. It is not clear at which exact point that this happened, though it probably developed between the early christian period and the seventh century C.E.

 

 

There were also  related traditions for artistic expression in Scandinavia. Recurring motifs in early Saxon and Scandinavian art are the gripping beast, and bands of knotwork ornament, which are frequently found in those parts.

It’s important to remember the history within the age in which this form of Celtic art became dominant in Celtic culture. Somewhere between the sixth and the eighth centuries there was a drawn out and brutal collision of British, Irish, Pictish and Scandinavian peoples in northern Britain. During the seventh century these same cultures fought for territory with such violence that all contemporary local records simply cease - for years. In the following generations of this period it’s apparent that there was a cross-fertilization of these cultures that may have resulted in what we now call Celtic Interlace.

However it got to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, it is clear that the Celts lost no time in perfecting Celtic knots. This form of decoration appears in metalwork, textiles, carved stones and in the illuminated manuscripts (see Book of Kells). By the time that the Celtic manuscripts were made, Irish ecclesiastics were at terms with the Saxons of England. Saxons would travel to Ireland to be educated. The welsh however, would not welcome them. Fact is, the Cristians didn't even want to convert them because then they would have to share Heaven with them.

What Does it Mean?

Some have suggested that knotwork patterns form a sort of language. This is probably not true other than the two secret knotwork alphabets created recently by Shane Clark. If it did exist, such a tradition would probably have predated christianity, which brought its own form of literacy to the Isles.

My own belief is that knotwork embodies the idea that all things proceed from one substance. Further, that all things are composed of various patterns of that one thing.  In this view the knotwork patterns represent the  whole of creation as the embodiment of one strand of being.