Book Of Kells
Great Source of Celtic Tattoos
The book of Kells (less widely known as the Book of Colomia) was written between the late 6th century to the early 9th century by the Celtic monks. It is an ornately illustrated manuscript, and one of the most lavishly
illustrated and illuminated books to survive the medieval period. Today it is on display at the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
The text is accompanied by incredibly intricate full pages of artwork, with smaller painted decorations appearing throughout the text itself. The book has a broad palette of
colors with purple, lilac, red, pink, green, yellow being the colors most often used. (The illustrations in the Book of Durrow, by contrast, use only four
colors.) Surprisingly, given the lavish nature of the work, there was no use of gold or silver leaf in the manuscript. The pigments used for the illustrations had to be imported from all over Europe; the immensely expensive blue lapis lazuli came from
Afghanistan.
The decorations are all of very high quality. The complexity of these designs are truly amazing. In one decoration, which occupies one inch square piece of a page, it is possible to count as many as 158 complex interlacements of white ribbon with a black border on either side. Some decorations can only be fully appreciated with magnifying glasses, although glasses of the required power were not available until hundreds of years after the book's completion. The complicated knot work and interweaving found in Kells and related manuscripts have many parallels in the metalwork and stone carving of the period. These design have also had an enduring popularity. Indeed many of these motifs are used today in popular art including jewelry and, of course, tattoos.
Celtic Tattoos
To have your tattoo shop featured on this site, or to trade links,
send email to
greazer@hotmail.com
(email encoded to protect against spam)