II.

The Phases of Celtic Art

Celtic art emerged in the environment of the Hallstatt Culture, an early Iron Age culture, identified as Celtic, that was centred in what is now Austria, Switzerland, and Bavaria. Although this culture existed from 750 to 450 bc, it is in the Late Hallstatt period (6th to early 5th century bc) that identifiably Celtic artistic features emerge. Characteristic Celtic traits are also found in the later La Tène Culture, which succeeded the Hallstatt, flourishing from about 450 bc up to the Roman conquest. The initial focus of La Tène Culture was what is now Switzerland, the Rhineland, and France; in its later phases it spread westward as far as Britain and Spain, and eastward as far as the Black Sea. Thus the term “La Tène art” can refer specifically to the art of the type site of La Tène, on Lake Neuchâtel, and also more generally to the whole period and extent of the Celtic world, from the 5th century bc to the 1st century ad. To divide the period as a whole, the terms La Tène I, II, and III, or Early, Middle, and Late La Tène, are used on the basis of developments in such key Celtic artefacts as brooches, swords, and scabbards.

As far as Celtic art of the La Tène period is concerned, the system of subdivision devised by Paul Jacobsthal in his classic Early Celtic Art (1944) is widely accepted. In Jacobsthal’s classification, four main styles are identified within the main framework of La Tène Culture: the Early Style, the Waldalgesheim Style, the Plastic Style, and the Sword Style.

The Early Style (c. 480-c. 350 bc) is characterized by finds made at chieftains’ graves in Germany and France. From Reinheim and Rodenbach, for example, come sumptuous gold torcs and bracelets, inspired by Greek and Etruscan models. Graves at Kleinaspergle and Basse-Yutz have yielded remarkable bronze flagons. In general, Classical and Oriental motifs abound, the most common being lotus buds, palmettes, and acanthus leaves.

The Waldalgesheim Style (c. 350-c. 290 bc), named after an important burial site near Bonn, echoes the period of Celtic expansion into Greece and Italy. Here, new developments can be seen on a range of jewellery and chariot fittings. The Classical influence remains strong, but there is a freer and more individualistic use of the Classical decorative models.

The Plastic Style (c. 290-c. 190 bc), characteristic of the more westerly parts of the Celtic world, is typified by a fresh emphasis on three-dimensional effects on ornaments; human and animal representation is more prominent and becomes stylized.

The Sword Style (after c. 190 bc), characteristic of the more easterly parts of the Celtic world, is named after the engraved decoration on swords and scabbards. In contrast to the flamboyant, figurative tendencies of the Plastic Style, these designs are invariably flat, linear, and abstract, though based on vegetal motifs of later Greek origin.

These subdivisions are based mainly on artefacts found in the west-central strongholds of the La Tène Culture. There are certain doubts as to their applicability both to the far western extent of the Celtic world (especially Britain and Ireland) and to its eastern extremities.

Celtic art is known today mainly in the form of grave goods, as votive offerings, or as hoards buried for safe keeping. A sizeable proportion of the surviving examples of Celtic art owe their preservation to the Celts’ custom of burying their chiefs and leaders bedecked with fine jewellery, equipped with prestigious weaponry, and provided with all that they would need to feast and drink in the afterlife. These chiefly burials suggest a sumptuous lifestyle in which imported artefacts mingled with Celtic ones, and give the best view of the ambience within which Celtic art developed. In addition to the wealth of objects that accompanied Celtic chiefs to the afterlife, votive offerings were made in such holy places as rivers, lakes, or artificial ponds; the fulfilment of vows and pledges to the gods would have required the dedication of the choicest possessions or spoils of war, and these offerings are another aspect of Celtic art that is known today. Sometimes hoards of precious objects were buried for safety, and lay undiscovered until recent times.

The metals used by Celtic craftsmen were generally available in Celtic territories. The tin used in bronze was said to have been mined in Cornwall and transported to the Continent. Some gold may have originated in Bohemia. Various other materials were imported from elsewhere: pink coral came from the Mediterranean, amber from the Baltic, and ivory (of which there are few examples) presumably from Africa. Silk fibres preserved in certain chieftains’ burials in Germany indicate that trade routes reaching as far as central Asia or even China brought luxury goods to the wealthiest Celts in the 6th century—the builders of the great hill forts of Mont Lassois, on the upper Saône, and at Heuneberg on the upper Danube. Routes to the Celtic hinterland also included the Greek colony and trading post of Massalia (Marseille). There were also trading links with the Etruscans in northern Italy and with the Greeks of the Adriatic; later on the Black Sea and the Danube also played a part.