In celebration of my 1 year wedding anniversary, I wanted to revisit something that completely blew my mind, and renewed inside me my love of typography, font design and letter shapes – my visit to Dublin, Ireland to see the Book of Kells.
One year ago today my wife and I travelled to Ireland for our honeymoon. I really could go on and on about how great it was, and how we wish we were back there even now, one full year later. Perhaps especially now as the weather here is very similar to the weather there last year. But before I digress too much, I wanted to talk about the Book of Kells.
You’ll have to find examples on the sites listed below, but the illustration and illumination of the Book is simply incredible. There is such precision and fine mathematical detail that scholars are still unsure exactly how a 7th century scribe (or three) could have created the works. The image here shows a page that was never completed… over 1200 years ago. You can see some text through the page on the other side. The image illustrates how a complex illuminated manuscript page was laid out.
I didn’t get to see the Book of Kells until much later in our journey when we returned to Dublin around June 18th, 2008. But when we were in Knowth I picked up a copy of George Bain’s Celtic Art – The Methods Of Construction.
This book *completely* floored me. George Bain is said to have been responsible for the resurgence of celtic inspired art beginning in the early 50’s. Celtic Art contains an entire chapter on Lettering and an incredible collection of copies of the letters and ornamented capitals from not only the Book of Kells, but also the Book of Durrow as well as the Lindisfarne Gospels… two other famous illuminated manuscripts. I counted more than 5 different versions of the letter A! All hand-drawn by George Bain from copies of books as well as stonework he had seen while travelling the countryside.
There are chapters on knotwork, including the use of knotwork for use in clothing, metal and stone carving. There is also a chapter on zoomorphics, which is the inclusion of animal images within the shapes of the letters themselves (like this one) as well as anthromorphs, where images of humans are tied up in the letters such as the ones in the corner shown here.
Bain’s book really is an incredible achievement, and it gives an amazing taste for the type of design found in the Book of Kells. If you want to create celtic art, you NEED Bain’s book Celtic Art.
Ok that’s enough for me. Its late. I could keep writing but I think I should get some sleep 
References for this post:
- Book Of Kells DVD - http://www.bookofkells.com – I bought it, its FANTASTIC.
- Kells Travel Info – http://www.myguideireland.com/kells
- History of the Monastery - http://www.heritagetowns.com/kells.shtml
- An article by Michelle Brown of the British Library - http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/c-d/celts07b.html
- (1910). Book of Kells. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.Retrieved June 11, 2009 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08614b.htm
- Wikipedia contains some excellent images and far more references and resources – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_kells
- Review of the facsimile edition, 1958: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2865000 – man, I would LOVE to have a facsimile of this. Article starts at the bottom of that page, but you’ll need access to JSTOR to read all of it.
- Location of Facimilies – University of Rochester (acquired 1952): http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2457, University of British Columbia: http://www.library.ubc.ca/spcoll/kells.html (Yay a Canadian copy!)
- Another book about the Book of Kells
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thank you
nice to see that people are looking at my blog, makes me wants to do it better now
bye!
You’re welcome Pakoola. I’ll keep checking out your great work.
What a great post!
I’ve had a deep seeded resentment for the Book of Kells (and pretty much all celtic art) because it was always something I associated with school. I had to study it as a part of history at a very young age, and go into great detail in Art class when I was older, so I tend to forget how beautiful and important it is sometimes!
It’s really refreshing to read about an “outsiders” view
Thanks for visiting Jonze. I’m glad my little post was able to get you thinking about celtic art in a new light. I would *love* to take a course like you’ve described. Trying to recreate the designs using Bain’s techniques is quite difficult for me, but I hope to write a post about it sometime.