- The Nature and Function of Celtic Art -
the same period' (Schapiro 1953). Because of Jacobsthal's classical training and the
existence of Greek and Roman written sources, early Celtic art has been largely
defined according to what it borrowed from Greek or Italic art, and its phases
divided according to what we know of Celtic history from classical commentators.
Much of the dating of Celtic material also depends on finds of classical imports in
temperate Europe. What is unique about Celtic art has often been described in terms
of its differences from classical art and several writers have seen changes in forms
and styles as essentially deriving from contact with Mediterranean peoples (e.g.
Kruta 1982). Again, some writers see 'truly' Celtic art as that which is most abstract
and least representational, or perhaps least 'Mediterranean'. The internal economic,
political, intellectual and religious dynamics of non-literate Celtic society are harder
to locate than the classical connections, except by means of such crude tools as
processual archaeology. Thus we often know less about the relationship of change
within La Tene society to Celtic art than about external influences upon it.
The first stage, or Early Style, of this art, according to Jacobsthal, emerged from a
triple root in the middle of the fifth century Be. First is the immediately preceding,
largely non-representational, angular geometric material typical of the fine metalwork
and decorated pottery associated with high-status burials of the so-called Western
Hallstatt group in the sixth to mid-fifth centuries Be. In Early Style this is reduced
to a background role. The second root of the art of the chieftains' graves is repre-
sented by plant-based motifs such as the palmette and lotus flower (Figures 20.1(1),
20.7, 20.8) borrowed by the Celts from the Greeks and Etruscans who used them
chiefly as bordering or fill-in decorative elements on fine painted pottery and on
metal vessels. Some human faces also derive from Mediterranean metalwork (von
Hase 1973). The importance of highly developed trade networks in this Early La Tene
phase is underlined by the presence of imports -usually Etruscan or Greek drinking-
vessels of one kind or another - and also by the use of foreign materials such as
Mediterranean coral (Figures 20.1(1), 20.6, 20.8, 20.10 (top right)) and occasionally
Baltic amber, African ivory, and shells from the Indian Ocean. The third strand has
been described by Jacobsthal and others as 'orientalizing', referring to the strange,
often fantastic, bestiary occasionally employed by local craftsmen basing themselves
on models sometimes considered to originate from the semi-nomadic world of the
eastern Scythians and related groups (Figures 20.9, 20.10 (below right), 20.15). Some
scholars even look to the art of the Achaemenian Persians who, under first Darius and
then Xerxes, invaded the Balkans in the course of the fifth century Be (Powell 1971;
Sandars 1971, 1976, 1985; Fischer 1983, 1988; Luschey 1983). It seems more likely,
however, that the 'orientalizing' element in early Celtic art was transmitted through
the intermediary once more of Italy and the orientalizing phases of Etruscan art
which in turn influenced northern Italy and the head of the Adriatic. In the absence of
any evidence of contact between royal Scythians and the Celts, some similarities
between Celtic and Scythian art are also more probably due to the contacts of both
peoples with Mediterranean material, in the case of the Scythians with the East Greek
colonies on the Black Sea (Castriota 1981; Megaw 1975; Hiittel 1978; Megaw and
Megaw 1990a). In addition, it has often been assumed that even the widespread use of
compass design on over a quarter of known decorated metalwork (Figure 20.1(2))
must also have been adopted from classical sources (Lenerz-de Wilde 1977).