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Art Styles - Part 1

Art of the Anglo-Saxon and Vikings -

Part 1: Introduction, and Rudimentary Decoration

-Dr Andrew Thompson 

It is not my intention to try to advance the field of Migration and Viking-Age art studies, and the explanations below must be considered to be summaries only. A number of far more authoritative and comprehensive (if not comprehensible) articles are included in the reference material cited at the end of each chapter. This is a challenging subject but certainly worth studying.

To the modern eye, used to functional or clean minimalism (itself a deeply culturally ingrained acquired taste which ultimately derives from the artistic effects of the Protestant Reformation) the creative environment of Northern Europe in the first millennium may seem over-decorated. No item seems to have been left plain and undecorated, and even simple every-day and relatively disposable items such as combs almost always had some kind of ornamentation. The obsession with decorating objects to the maximum - the implied abhorrence of empty space (“horror vacui”) is perhaps the single uniting principle of art from 400-1100 CE (as it is, to an extent, it was in neighboring eras), and may have its roots in the relatively high value / scarcity of refined materials - particularly metal, stone or velum - compared to the lower value / scarcity of crafts-peoples’ time. If an item had been made from hugely valuable material it would be wasteful not to go the extra mile by devoting a few hours to decorating it. This contrasts strongly with our own circumstances in the 21st century, where materials are, broadly speaking, relatively cheap, and the monetary value of the hours spent decorating a functional item might often exceed the value invested in the materials. In this sense it is no surprise that, in our everyday lives, so many of our functional possessions are left un-decorated.

Across the whole period concerned, the sophistication of art and decoration varied widely depending on the value or status associated with an item, or the creative context from which it originated. Thus, while highly sophisticated art-works, presumably the preserve of a relatively small class of highly skilled and sought-after craftspeople, show clear stylistic development over time, more “every-day” items originating in lower-status contexts, perhaps made by the owner themselves, or by a semi-skilled local craftsperson, show distinctive, rudimentary but often highly conserved artistic styles. Though most academic study has understandably been confined to the former, it is important not to overlook the latter.

Rudimentary Decorative Styles

As previously mentioned, a number of rudimentary decorative styles exist which seem to be associated with more grass-roots crafts, although occasionally crop up on higher-value objects. Many of these decorative styles have their origins in much earlier periods, and often persist right through and beyond the Anglo Saxon and ‘Viking Age’. They can be interpreted as gestures towards ‘filling the vacuum’, by less specialist craftspeople (as opposed to full-time ‘artists’), often working in less cooperative materials.   The following list is not comprehensive, but includes a number of very common, and, for the most part, long-lived styles.

Ring and Dot

Perhaps the most common of simple decorative motifs across all of European history, ring and dot is extremely ancient - certainly present on personal items all the way back to the Bronze Age, and, perhaps, represented in its very earliest form, in the “cup and ring marks” of the Neolithic. Any attempts to infer some kind of meaning of this very common motif would be pure, arguably pointless speculation.

However, if it did not have very particular, useful characteristics, it would not have persisted from deep prehistory all the way through into the Medieval period proper. Ring-and-dot motifs (often with perfectly concentric rings), when carved into hard materials such as the bone or antler of combs, exhibit perfect regularity, and were achieved using a toothed bit with a longer central spike, which could be dug into the surface and then rotated (either by hand, or using a bow-drill) on its axis as to dig concentric, perfectly circular grooves. Such perfect regularity, in this case resulting from rotation of the tool, analogous to a potter’s wheel, is extremely elusive when working freehand with simple tools. Human beings are hardwired to find order and symmetry pleasing to the eye, and the kind of perfect “order” exhibited by this simple motif is practically impossible to achieve in other ways without machinery or tools of geometry. Further, ring-and-dot motifs carved/drilled using the same bit will be pleasingly identical, so a scheme of ring-and-dot motifs on an object will tend to exhibit a pleasing regularity. It is this uniquely easily achieved “order” which probably lies at the root of its appeal, and persistence through the centuries.


An ancient family of symbols which appear occasionally on archaeological finds, these too are defined by symmetry and rotation, although, unlike ring-and-dot motifs, must be very carefully carved or punched freehand. Number of prongs varies from three (triskele) up. These symbols are most commonly found on simple personal items, or occasionally stamped into vessels such as cinerary urns.

However, the swastika is not entirely confined to simple items and crafts, bleeding through into more sophisticated and technical items of personal art, including elaborate textiles (the gold brocaded tablet-weave from Chessel Down, Isle of Wight 1855/Grave I, and the famous Snartemo V tablet weave from 6th century Norway), and sophisticated metalwork (the such as the 7th century garnet and filigree raven pendant from King’s Field, Faversham, the similar gold pendant from the Wieuwerd (Friesland) Hoard,and the bronze Andernach Pendant from Germany, each of which represent the spokes of the wheel as birds of prey).

Unlike most other decorative motifs, the meaning of swastika symbols to Northern Europeans at the time is easier to unpick; It has been theorized* that this symbol was associated with the thunder god Þunor, possibly representing his hammer, which symbolised thunder. It may have originally derived from the ‘sun-wheel swastika’, with curved outer limbs, which is first seen in the Bronze Age. The swastika seems to have had special significance as a funerary symbol and may reflect the belief in the hallowing power of the hammer of the thunder-god. This belief is shown in the runic inscription on the Velanda Runestone, Sweden, which means "may Þórr hallow."

*H.R. Ellis Davidson (1965). Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Hatching, Parallel Lines and Strapwork

A commonly used technique, particularly on items such as combs, was to carve designs consisting of parallel lines, either concentric borders, or zones of oblique hatching (sometimes within partitioned areas in geometric shapes), into surfaces. As well as creating a textured surface which functions to increase grip, this type of decoration has the impressive quality of, like the Ring and Dot motif, creating a very ‘ordered’ look.

Close examination often reveals such lines to be irregularly spaced, or imperfectly arranged, as one might expect from a semi-skilled craftsperson carving lines free-hand, yet the overall effect gives the impression of perfectly ordered designs and textures, almost as if produced by a machine. This tendency for the human eye to interpret such textures as perfectly ordered at anything other than ultra-close examination, may explain their appeal and longevity. Like the ring-and-dot, these patterns are an easy way to produce visually pleasing order using basic tools.

Examples such as the preserved 10th century seax sheath from Parliament Street, York, demonstrate that such patterns were used to decorate leatherwork, and may represent a long-lived, default technique for neat space-filling decoration on a wide range of materials.


Contrasting strongly to this sense of visually pleasing order, are crude runic inscriptions which appear occasionally, though rarely, on items from the Iron Age into the Migration Period. These, almost always crudely scratched into the surface of an object, perhaps with a knife, are cut shallow and with irregular letter size and shape.

These crude inscriptions are not confined to lowly personal items such as combs (read more about combs, inlcuding the rune-inscribed comb from Vimose, here), but even elaborately decorated and well made high-status objects (such as the Chessel Down Throat, see article, or Nordendorf Fibula, see article) where such inscriptions (though hugely useful to modern archaeologists) could almost be seen as acts of artistic vandalism.

Added to these, arguably, could be added the runes included in 5th-6th century cinerary urns such as the famous example from Loveden Hill, Lincolnshire (pictured), or the Alu cipher-runes which appear on three cinerary urns from Spong Hill, Norfolk. These were evidently carved into the clay before firing.

These runes can hardly be described as an artistic style, yet it is undoubtedly the case that, into the middle and late Anglo-Saxon period, and so-called “Viking Age”, rune carving had undoubtedly become a sophisticated art form, in beautiful metal inlay (as on the 9th-10th century Seax of Beagnoth / “Thames Scramasax”), carefully carved into bone (as on the 8th century Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket, see article) or carved and painted into stone (as on countless ‘Viking’ runestones, or the spectacular 8th century Anglo-Saxon Ruthwell Cross).

Although the tradition of raising carved stones, with runic inscriptions first appeared in the 4th-5th century (with early examples including the Möjbro Runestone from Hagby, Uppland, Sweden), the tradition evolved and hugely expanded during the 9th-11th centuries. The reasons for rune-stones to be carved and erected, often themselves included as part of the inscription, are diverse, yet the occasional inclusion of the name of the carver in such inscriptions provides proof that the carving of rune-stones was a specialist craft.  The obvious division of rune-stones into distinct and evolving stylistic phases further supports rune-carving being considered an art.    The typology used today, devised by Anne-Sophie Gräslund in the 1990s, divides rune-stones of the period 980-1130 CE into phases RAK, FP, Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4, and Pr5, which will be discussed in more detail in a later installment of this series.

Broadly, however, it can be observed that earlier rune-stones have their inscriptions organised into neat, but rigid lines with no, or little superfluous artistic elements, while later, lines of runes become increasingly snake-like, interlacing, coiling and twisting, and beginning and ending with stylized heads and tails.  The heads and tails of these rune-beasts correspond closely to the contemporaneous animal-art phases represented in other media such as Viking jewellery, and are therefore useful for dating purposes.


The techniques discussed so far exist at the fringes of the study of art from this period and cultures, which is otherwise typified by unusual, abstract designs, including mysterious animals and complicated interlace.

In coming installments of this illustrated series, we will be looking at the various phases of 'northern' Migration-Age animal art and their antecedents, examining the sophisticated Insular art which emerged when 'Celtic' and 'Germanic' artistic cultures collided in Anglo-Saxon England, and then navigating the explosion of distinctive art-styles which emerged in Scandinavia during the "Viking Age".
Posted by Dr Andrew Thompson on Monday, February 13, 2017