5th year homework - continue notes where we left on - in hardback copies please.

METALWORK –
Early Christian Ireland

Points to know :

· Colmcilles monastery in Iona was an important link between Britain and Ireland.  The anglo – Saxons had brought the animal art of northern Europe in Britain, which had also been occupied by the romans, and during the Christian era, a new artistic tradition developed which fused Germanic Roman and various traditions of the Mediterranean in Ireland.

· The traditions blended with the earlier La Tene style and formed a unique form of art found in manuscript illumination and metalwork of the late seventh and eight centuries.

Techniques:

· Around 600AD the techniques used in fine Irish craftsmanship changed considerably from that of the Iron age.  Solid silver was used in making objects like chalices, enamel was used more and a new technique of millefiori glass was adopted.

· Millefiori was produced by covering a cane of glass with layers of different coloured glass and cutting them into shorter lengths.  Sometimes lengths of coloured glass were laid together and fused before cutting and setting into the metalwork.

· New types of objects became fashionable, such as large pins and penannular brooches for fastening garments.  There were probably workshops all over they country, but some are known to have been at the monastic site at Armagh and at Ballinderry crannog Co.Offaly.  A small group of penannular brooches, of which the Ballinderry brooch is the finest, survive from that time.  The penannular brooch, so called because of the gap in the ring, was developed from a Roman military style brooch found in northern Britain.

The 18^th century metalworking techniques

· Motifs used in manuscripts are also found in metalwork.  Similar colouring is applied by using enamels, and 18^th century metalwork shows an astonishing range of techniques, all over decorations and a combination of local and borrowed techniques. 

· New techniques of gold filigree, gilding and silvering, kerbschnitt, die-stamping and a variety of new colours in glass and enamel were added to the native skills of bronze casting, engraving and colouring with red enamel.

The golden age of irish metalwork

· The early 18^th century is the era known as the Golden age and is a time of perfection in Irish art.  Objects with dazzling array of techniques, such as the Tara brooch and the Ardagh Chalice seem to have suddenly made their appearance.  However, these and other splendid pieces were found by chance and who knows what other objects have been lost from that time.