Ancient Celtic Art [pp. 162-177]

1883.] AKCIEKT CELTIC ART. i67
derful specimens of Celtic metallurgy. One in particular in the
Irish Academy collection is fully eight feet long, and not cast in
a mould, but riveted together with the utmost care. Neither
weapons nor trumpets, however, can compare as works of art
with other objects used especially for personal decoration. These
include breastplates, bracelets, necklaces and arm lets, pins,
brooches, and numerous other ornaments, all worked out in a
perfectly Qriginal style, and many of them beautiful examples of
forms unknown in other schools of art.workmanship. A favorite
form of ornament on these is the divergent spiral or trumpet
pattern, resembling in outline the shells of the snail set back to
back. In bronze medallions four or more of these volutes are
inscribed within a circle, and the combinations produced by
other uses of this form are almost endless, and many of them
most striking.
The most remarkable, in an art point of view, of these ancient
ornaments are the pins and brooches used for fastening the
mantles. Of these several hundreds are exhibited in the Irish
Academy alone, varying in finish from the plain skewer of
bron~ze to the beautiful Tara brooch, several inches in diameter,
and perhaps the most artistic ornament of the kind designed
anywhere. In the earlier times the pins seem to have been alone
used, and the manner in which the brooch was developed from
them is shown most plainly by numerous examples. The plain
p;n or skewer was followed by a headed one resembling a
modern breastpin, but cast solid in bronze. Both forms seem to
have been elaborately finished at times, and some of the specimens are beautifully inlaid with silver, gold, and niello. The
curves on the shafts are varied and elegant in form, and a high
finish was attained before the idea of connecting a ring with the
pin was introduced. This, the earliest form of the brooch, at
first was merely a small ring passing through the square head of
a pin, and just large enough to turn freely around it. In this
form of pin the ring, in fact, was a mere adjunct to the head; but
the hint it gave seems to have caught the fancy of the old Celtic
goldsmiths, who gradually enlarged and decorated the ring until
its diameter equalled the length of the pin itself. To provide a
clasp was then all that was required to transform the pin into
a brooch, and that step was quickly taken. The ring brooch in
turn was worked into new forms by succeeding artists. The
ring was filled with tracery, either wholly or partially, and afterwards jewe1f~d. Amber and enamel beads were set in its front,
and raised patterns of tracery introduced in the centre. The