Three Celtic Art Books (- and some bad copying!)

Some people think Celtic Art is cliched, or "twee" or simply old fashioned. Well, I can't help myself, I just love it! What I think appeals to me is the discipline and freedom and playfulness of the designs. The knotwork I find especially intriguing, that it always follows the over/under/over/under sequence even with complex parallel multithread designs. That a single "thread" of the knot would never go over two other threads in succession, but always over one and then under the other.

I really got to grips with it when I was at Bath University (in the South East of England) studying Electronic Engineering. I found a book by George Bain called "Celtic Art - the methods of construction" in a second hand book shop.

It is a long lasting best seller. I bought it second hand in 1979, it was first published in 1951, and is still available from amazon.com, with a more colorful cover than my old workhorse copy:

The book starts with general introduction to Celtic Art and chapters on the various forms and types which centuries ago were created by unknown artists and craftsment. There are chapters on Plant Forms, Human Forms, Knotwork Panels, Spirals, Animals and so on. Below is an image from the "Human Forms" chapter:

Each chapter has a brief introduction and then you are into pages of drawings which purport to give a system for creating the designs. To be honest I have never ever followed the instructions, I just sort of experimentally draw things following Bain's final drawings as an example. From a few of the reviews I have read other people who tried to follow the instructions were pretty baffled by them. Here is a typical half page of instructions from the "Knotwork Panels" chapter:

But it is a great source book, whether you follow the instructions or not, and a must have for any budding Celtic Artist.

Aidan Meehan, a sort of modern George Bain, is a prolific writer on Celtic Art. I have two of his books:

Again there is some background and some examples and instructions for creating knotwork panels and borders and spirals and so on. Meehan's instructions seem as confusing as those of Bain, but again the books serve well as a starting point and source book for new celtic designs.

Gliftex, the image designer, has a form called Celtic Circles, which is basically an arrangement of circles and lines (which you can change with sliders) to create images. Here are some examples:

(The amazing thing about Gliftex is that you don't need to be able to draw!) Here is another example, with tiling enabled so the Celtic pattern is repeated and the image can be used as a background:

Now on to those bad copies, if you don't like to hear whining please stop reading now...

The design on this cup is called Iona and was "adapted" by Jane Brookshaw. She has obviously no idea of the discipline involved in knotwork. Lines should go under then over and under then over and so on. In effect she has copied a good design badly. Had she slavishly copied a good design properly the result would have been less irritating!

I have roughly and quickly corrected these errors, and you can see the comparison in the image below:

Lines flow under and over as they should do in proper knotwork.

Unfortunately I was given, as a present, another cup with a design "adapted badly" by the same lady. See if you can find the errors in the image below before scrolling down to the solution. You are looking for threads or paths which do not intertwine properly. I.e. they do not go under and over and under and over:

And here are the unknotted "knots":

Maybe it is just me ("Yes! it is just you!" I hear you cry) but I find this lack of rigour in this bad copying of a good artwork very irritating.

Other Articles