The International Conference on Insular Art (IIAC) is the leading forum for scholars of the visual and material culture of early medieval Ireland and Britain, including manuscript illumination, sculpture, metalwork, and textiles, and encompassing the work of Anglo-Saxon-, Celtic- and Norse-speaking artists. The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the eighth IIAC, which took place in Glasgow 11-14 July 2017. The theme of IIAC8
- Peopling Insular Art: Practice, Performance, Perception - was intended to focus attention on those who commissioned, created, and engaged with Insular art objects, and how they conceptualised, fashioned, and experienced them (with ‘engagement’ covering not only contemporary audiences, but later medieval and modern ones too). The twenty-one articles gathered here reflect the diverse ways in which this theme has been interpreted. They demonstrate the intellectual vibrancy of Insular art studies, its international outlook, its interdiscplinarity, and its openness to innovative technologies and approaches, while at the same time demonstrating the strength and enduring value of established methodologies and research practices. The studies collected here focus not only on made objects, but on the creative processes and intellectual decisions which informed their making. This volume brings Insular makers – the illuminators, pattern-makers, rubricators, carvers, and casters – to the fore.
Om forfatteren
Cynthia Thickpenny completed her PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2019 with an artist-focussed study of Insular key pattern. In addition to her interest in geometric ornament, she has published on aspects of Scottish sculpture and Pictish symbols. Katherine Forsyth is Reader in Celtic and Gaelic at the University of Glasgow. She has published on early medieval inscribed stones from Scotland and Ireland, on aspects of Pictish sculpture, Celtic boardgames, and on Scotland’s oldest manuscript, the Book of Deer. Jane Geddes, is Professor Emerita of History of Art at the University of Aberdeen. She has published extensively on diverse aspects of the art and architectural of history of medieval and early medieval Britain, including, Hunting Picts: Medieval Sculpture at St Vigeans, Angus (2017). Kate Mathis completed her PhD in Medieval Gaelic literature at the University of Edinburgh in 2011 and now teaches in the department of Celtic and Gaelic at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests and publications span the early Medieval to the Celtic Revival, with a particular focus on women’s poetry and elegy.