File:The arts in early England (1903) (14761706276).jpg

Identifier: artsinearlyengla03brow (find matches)
Title: The arts in early England
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Brown, G. Baldwin (Gerard Baldwin), 1849-1932 Webster, A. Blyth (Adam Blyth), 1882-1956 Sexton, Eric H. L. (Eric Hyde Lord), 1902-1980
Subjects: Art Architecture Architecture, Medieval Church architecture Crosses Decoration and ornament, Celtic Inscriptions, Runic
Publisher: London, J. Murray
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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the sceattas. It happens howeverthat the relation between the tomb furniture and the coins issuch a distant one that this expectation can only be fulfilled inthe most partial manner. Points of contact between the twosets of designs are as a matter of fact very hard to find, andit is as much as we can do to believe that the creators of thetwo sets were contemporaries and fellow-countrymen, the oldidea that they were the same people being obviously no longertenable. For example, in the tomb furniture it is the rarestthing to find a trace of floral ornament, whereas the sceattason the lower half of PI. vin exhibit foliage treated with nolittle freedom and grace. The human figure, or portions ofit, can be just recognized on some pieces of decorative workfrom the cemeteries that are however so few in number that 1 Les sceattas jusquau dernier jour de leur existence ne se sont pasdebarrasses de marques singulieres provenant du paganisme. IX facing p. 103 MOTIVES CONNECTED WITH SCEAT DESIGNS
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NATURALISTIC ANIMALS 103 they can be counted on the fingers, whereas the whole form,quaintly rendered no doubt but complete and in reasonableproportions, is not uncommon on the coins. The humanhead in profile or full face is the commonest of all devices onthe coins, and here the difference is not so great, for while theprofile human head hardly ever occurs on the tomb furniturethe full-face head is rather a favourite motive. In regard toanimal ornament a distinction must be made. There doesexist within the area of Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture animalenrichment of a normal kind, such animal ornament as isfound on the best of the sceattas, like those on the twolowest lines on PI. vm, or the bird pecking at the grapes.This animal ornament is distinctly founded on classicalmodels, and, save in the case of a very few exceptional piecespresently to be considered, it is confined to the earliest Anglo-Saxon period when Roman works of art that would serve asexamples were abundantly in evidence. O

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