- The Nature and Function of Celtic Art -
This early stage of artistic development can be related to the archaeologically
visible collapse of the western late Hallstatt centres of power in southern Germany
and the Rhone valley of France, and the shift of political and economic importance
to more dispersed warrior elites in the Champagne area (Charpy and Roualet I99Ib),
the Rhineland and Bohemia. It is also increasingly clear from recent archaeological
excavations of major cemeteries that, in the later fifth and early fourth centuries BC,
groups with closely related art styles were already installed as far east as Slovakia and
eastern Austria as well as in northern Italy (Megaw, Megaw and Neugebauer 1989).
Such groups were the forerunners of the expansion documented by classical writers
such as Livy, which brought Celts to settle in northern Italy and move gradually
eastwards into what is now Transdanubian Hungary and beyond (Szabo 1992). This
period of displacement has its artistic reflection in the development of the so-called
'Waldalgesheim' or 'Vegetal' .. style which by the end of the fourth century can be
found decorating pottery, metal and even some of the few pieces of sculpture known
from this period (Figures 20.1(3, 4), 20.2, 20.IIa).
Typified by an evolution from the stricter, more static use of classical plant motifs
found in the art of the chieftains' graves into freer, more continuously flowing pat-
terns, the Vegetal style sometimes incorporates elusive face-like forms - dubbed the
'Cheshire [Cat] style' after the disappearing and appearing feline in Alice in
Wonderland Oacobsthal 1944; Megaw 1970b; Lenerz-de Wilde 1977). Yet the style
has clear forerunners in Early Style art and is still based upon compass layout
(Castriota 1981; Verger 1986,1987). The close similarity in the decoration of a range
of objects across much of Europe is witness to the wide dispersal of iron age icon-
ography and its ready acceptance by disparate groups serviced by artisans with a
shared artistic background. There can be no doubt that fresh settlement in Italy, by
several peoples, possibly from the Marne and from Bohemia among others, offered
a stimulus to the exchange of ideas for the development of this new 'style'. The fine
wheel-turned pottery of the Champagne region east of Reims also exhibits in this
period painted variations of the 'Vegetal' motifs (Figure 20.IIa), including some in
reserved red-figure style (Charpy and Roualet 199Ia), while other areas of
Champagne and Bohemia appear to become depopulated (Bataille-Melkon and
Charpy 1985; Charpy and Roualet 1987: 70-86; 1991b; Kruta 1991b; Corradini
1991). In the third century BC, after a further expansion eastwards as far as Anatolia,
Celts from central Europe seem to have resettled the same French area, introducing
new fashions in decorated arm-and foot~rings and brooches (Kruta 1985; Charpy
and Roualet 1991b: 161-96). The fourth and early third centuries saw the adoption
in several regions of a more standardized 'set' of ornaments as witnessed by male and
female grave goods found in smaller and more dispersed cemeteries.
From the beginning of the third century, Jacobsthal envisaged the development of
two 'sub-styles'. One of these was associated chiefly with the decoration of sword
scabbards -mostly of iron -obviously important status symbols amongst a warrior-
dominated society (Figures 20.1(5), 20.3, 20.16, 20.17). This Sword Style can now be
seen to have a series of regional centres in parts of France, western Switzerland, Italy,
Serbia and Hungary (De Navarro 1972; Szabo 1977, 1991; Petres and Szabo 1974;
Szabo and Petres 1992). In Hungary and Serbia especially, local smiths showed
continuing reliance on complex variations on Italo-Greek plant motifs, outgrowths
349