Often in the illumination we may detect these
popular local industries. We see mosaic enamelling, wood-and
stone-carving, and lacquer-work, and as we approach the Renaissance,
even gem-cutting and the delicate craft of the medallist. In Venice and
the Netherlands we have the local taste for flower-culture; in Germany
we find sculpture in wood and stone; in France the productions of the
enameller and the goldsmith; until at length, in the full blaze of the
Renaissance itself, we have in almost every land the same varieties of
enrichment practised according to its own special style of work.
It has been said that the oldest Celtic illuminated MSS. show no signs
of classic, or even Byzantine, influence, yet the plan or framework of
the designs makes use both of the cross and the arch, as used in the
earliest Byzantine examples. The details, indeed, are quite different,
and manifestly derived from indigenous sources. It may be, therefore,
that the framework is merely a geometrical coincidence which could not
well be avoided. The fact that the basis of pure Irish ornament _is_
geometrical, and developed out of the prehistoric and barbarous art of
the savages who preceded the Celts in Ireland; such art as is used on
the carved shafts of spears, and oars, and staves of honour, and
afterwards on stone crosses and metal-work, may account for the
similarity of ideas in ornament developed by old Roman decorators in
their mosaic pavements, and may reconcile, in some measure, the varied
opinions of different writers who have approached the subject from
different points of view.
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