The Golden Age of Irish Art: The Medieval Achievement, 600-1200

In the fields of manuscript illumination and luxury metalwork, Medieval Ireland led the world. This flowering of the arts had a religious context, with powerful Irish monasteries producing illuminated Gospels such as the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow, as well as a host of vessels, reliquaries, and crosses that includes the Tara Brooch and the Ardagh Chalice. The bizarre imagination, minute detail, and decorative invention that made this art seem to be "the work of angels rather than men" is still unequaled. But fascinating as it is, most is so scantily documented that it has long been a controversial topic for scholars. The Golden Age of Irish Art is the first serious assessment of the subject since 1945. In the last fifty years, painstaking research has added a wealth of new information and fresh insight, and Peter Harbison, the acknowledged authority on Medieval Irish archaeology, examines the art of the entire period. This up-to-date account, with over 250 illustrations of illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, architecture, and sculpture, is the most lavish and authoritative survey available on the subject.