LINDISFARNE GOSPELSThe marriage between Christian
imagery and the animal-interlace style of the northern warlords is
evident in the cross-inscribed carpet page (FIG. 16-1) of the Lindis-
farne Gospels.Produced in the Northumbrian monastery on Lindis-
farne Island, the book contains several ornamental pages and exem-
plifies Hiberno-Saxon art at its best. According to a later colophon
(an inscription, usually on the last page, providing information re-
garding a book’s manufacture), Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne be-
tween 698 and his death in 721, wrote the Lindisfarne Gospels “for
God and Saint Cuthbert.” Cuthbert’s relics (see “Pilgrimages and the
Cult of Relics,” Chapter 17, page 432) recently had been deposited in
the Lindisfarne church.
The patterning and detail of the Lindisfarne ornamental page
are much more intricate than those of the Book of Durrow.Serpentine
interlacements of fantastic animals devour each other, curling over
and returning on their writhing, elastic shapes. The rhythm of ex-
panding and contracting forms produces a most vivid effect of mo-
tion and change, but the painter held it in check by the regularity of
the design and by the dominating motif of the inscribed cross. The
cross—the all-important symbol of the imported religion—stabilizes
the rhythms of the serpentines and, perhaps by contrast with its
heavy immobility, seems to heighten the effect of motion. The illu-minator placed the motifs in detailed symmetries, with inversions,
reversals, and repetitions that the viewer must study closely to
appreciate not so much their variety as their mazelike complexity.
The zoomorphic forms intermingle with clusters and knots of line,
and the whole design vibrates with energy. The color is rich yet cool.
The painter adroitly adjusted shape and color to achieve a smooth
and perfectly even surface.
Like most Hiberno-Saxon artworks, the Lindisfarne cross page
displays the artist’s preference for small, infinitely complex, and
painstaking designs. Even the Matthew symbol (FIG. 16-6) in the
Book of Durrow reveals that the illuminator’s concern was abstract
design, not the depiction of the natural world. But exceptions exist.
In some Insular manuscripts, the northern artists based their com-
positions on classical pictures in imported Mediterranean books.
This is the case with the author portrait of Saint Matthew (FIG.
16-7) in the Lindisfarne Gospels.The Hiberno-Saxon illuminator’s
model must have been one of the illustrated Gospel books a Chris-
tian missionary brought from Italy to England. Author portraits
were familiar features of Greek and Latin books, and similar repre-
sentations of seated philosophers or poets writing or reading (FIGS.
10-71and 11-6) abound in ancient art. The Lindisfarne Matthew sits
in his study composing his account of the life of Christ. A curtain
sets the scene indoors, as in classical art (FIG. 5-58), and the evange-
list’s seat is at an angle, which also suggests a Mediterranean model
employing classical perspective. The painter (or the scribe) labeled
Matthew in a curious combination of Greek (O Agios,saint—writ-
ten, however, using Latin rather than Greek letters) and Latin
(Mattheus), perhaps to lend the prestige of two classical languages to
the page. The former was the language of the New Testament, the
latter that of the Church of Rome. Accompanying Matthew is his
symbol, the winged man (labeled imago hominis,image of the man).
The identity of the figure—actually just a disembodied head and
shoulders—behind the curtain is uncertain. Among the possibilities
are Christ, Saint Cuthbert, and Moses holding the closed book of the
Old Testament in contrast with the open book of Matthew’s New
Testament, a common juxtaposition in medieval Christian art and
thought.
Although a southern manuscript inspired the Lindisfarne com-
position, the Northumbrian painter’s goal was not to copy the
model faithfully. Instead, uninterested in the emphasis on volume,
shading, and perspective that are the hallmarks of the pictorial
illusionism of Greco-Roman painting, the Lindisfarne illuminator
conceived his subject in terms of line and color exclusively. In the
Hiberno-Saxon manuscript, the drapery folds are a series of sharp,
regularly spaced, curving lines filled in with flat colors. The painter
converted fully modeled forms bathed in light into the linear idiom
of northern art. The result is a vivid new vision of Saint Matthew.BOOK OF KELLS The greatest achievement of Hiberno-Saxon
art is the Book of Kells,which boasts an unprecedented number of
full-page illuminations, including carpet pages, evangelist symbols,
portrayals of the Virgin Mary and of Christ, New Testament narra-
tive scenes, canon tables, and several instances of monumentalized
and embellished words from the Bible. One medieval commentator
described the Book of Kellsin the Annals of Ulster for the year 1003 as
“the chief relic of the western world.” The manuscript (named after
the monastery in central Ireland that owned it) was written and dec-
orated either at Iona or a closely related Irish monastery. From an
early date, the book was housed in an elaborate metalwork box,
befitting a greatly revered “relic.” The monks probably displayed the
book on a church altar.Christian Art: Scandinavia, British Isles, Spain 41316-7Saint Matthew, folio 25 verso of the Lindisfarne Gospels,from
Northumbria, England, ca. 698–721. Tempera on vellum, 1–^12 9 –^14 .
British Library, London.
The inspiration for this author portrait may have been a Mediterranean
book. The illuminator converted the model’s fully rounded forms into
the linear flat-color idiom of northern European art.1 in.