chapter 8 The Lindisfarne Gospels: The Art of Symmetry and the Symmetry of Art

Michael N. Brennan

Introduction: The Symmetry Tradition Western art, reflection is taken to imply classical influ- ence. But another type of symmetry – rotation – is also a The decorative art of the Lindisfarne Gospels, particularly feature of Roman art.4 A knotwork border on a circular in respect of its symmetry and asymmetry, offers insights mosaic, a procession of animals around the rim of a plate, into the intellectual gifts of the artist, and into his under- and circular friezes, all project rotational symmetry.5 standing of his artistic-scribal commission. If the illumi- Rotation is a feature of Anglo-Saxon quoit and disc nator of a sacred book was thought to be an agent of God, brooches, both of which have Roman prototypes, and it divinely inspired to edify the faithful with celebratory appears in the rectangular head-plates of some Germanic images, gloriously ornamented capitals and reverential bow brooches. A common motif in the Germanic setting portraits,1 then Eadfrith simultaneously exemplifies and is that of two identical animals biting each other’s tails, a refines this role.2 His experiments with interlace, in par- motif with only a single symmetry, rotation through 180°.6 ticular, may lead modern beholders to wonder if his work The same symmetry is produced by the continuity of a was not at times rationalist as well as religious. knotwork border on a rectangular frame, a characteristic Symmetry, in places multi-storeyed, is a feature of every of the borders in the Book of Durrow (tcd, 57). Rotation decorated page in the Lindisfarne Gospels, but the pres- appears early in Insular Christian contexts: the Greek ent account will be restricted to a discussion of the cross, frequently used as the centre-piece of a cross-carpet ­symmetry on three of the five cross-carpet pages and one page, inherits the reflective symmetries of the rectangular gospel incipit. Symmetry was an imperative that bore page, vertically and horizontally, but also possesses 90°, down heavily on Insular artists of the seventh and eighth 180° and 270° rotational symmetry. The slant arm of the centuries. In art-historical discussions the term ‘symme- polygraph ‘ini’ on fol. 2r of the gospel-book or New try’ is very often used to mean only reflection (that is, Testament fragment, Durham Cathedral Library, A.II.10, ­mirror-symmetry),3 and in the case of early medieval has 180° rotational symmetry, widely repeated in this con- text in Insular manuscripts of the seventh and eighth 1 See discussion below of the artist’s ‘divine’ inspiration. 2 Richard Gameson, From Holy Island to Durham: the contexts and meanings of the Lindisfarne Gospels (Durham-London, 2013), Ch. 1, misses, however, the global rotational symmetry of the full page summarises the case for the artist having been Eadfrith, the bishop illumination in the Book of Durrow (tcd, fol. 3v; see n. 14 below), of Lindisfarne who died in ad 722. referring instead to its ‘mix of symmetry and asymmetry’. In Roman 3 See, e.g., E.M. Jope’s use of ‘symmetry, dissymmetry and asymmetry’ art and architecture, ‘symmetria’ meant harmony in measurement, in Early Celtic Art in the British Isles, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000), i, pp. ideally through modular construction: see M. Wilson Jones, 200–2. Jope did not see rotation as symmetry on the same level as Principles of Roman Architecture (New Haven, 2000), Ch. 2. For mod- reflection and, as a result, treats examples of rotational symmetry as ular construction and harmonious geometry in the design of the (reflective) asymmetries. Cf. Lloyd Laing, European Influence on carpet pages in the Lindisfarne Gospels see Robert D. Stevick, The Celtic Art (Dublin, 2010), pp. 25–6 on ‘Style iv’ asymmetry and ‘Style Earliest Irish and British Bookarts (Philadelphia, 1994), Chs. 5, 7, 9, 13. v’ symmetry; also Barry Raftery, Pagan Celtic Ireland: the Enigma of 4 Christine Swenson,‘The Symmetry Potentials of the Ornamental the Irish Iron Age, (London, 1994), p. 165, on the Loughnashade Pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels’, Gesta 17.1 (1978), 9–17 at 12 trumpet. Walter S. Sizer, ‘Mathematical Notions in Preliterate remarks: ‘A Classic design will always have reflection possibilities Societies’, The Mathematical Intelligencer 13.4 (1991), p. 57, cites rota- and may, but need not, possess potential for rotation’. tion and translation as conscious symmetries of Celtic art; Peter R. 5 Cf. Niamh Whitfield, ‘Formal Conventions in the Depiction of Cromwell, ‘Celtic knotwork: Mathematical art’, The Mathematical Animals on Celtic Metalwork’, From the Isles of the North: Early Intelligencer 15.1 (1993), 36–47, treats of the full range of symmetries Medieval art in Britain and Ireland, ed. C. Bourke (Belfast, 1994), in two and three dimensions. Brent. R. Doran, ‘Mathematical 89–104 at 92. Sophistication of the Insular Celts: Spirals, Symmetries, and Knots 6 An attractive, minimal abstraction of this motif occurs on a gold as a Window onto Their World View’, Proceedings of the Harvard plate fitted to an unidentified gold-and-cloisonne object, K130, in Celtic Colloquium 15 (1995), 258–89, states of Celtic art that ‘by the the Staffordshire Hoard. The motif is currently the logo for the first centuries ad … global rotational symmetry dominates’; he hoard: http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk (April 2016).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004337848_009 158 Brennan centuries;7 and from the time of the Book of Durrow centuries? Gloria Swenson carefully documented sym- onwards, 90° or 180° rotational symmetry was built into metric aspects of the Lindisfarne Gospels’ carpet pages, the central crossing of the Χ in the Chi-rho monogram, listing large reflective (her term is ‘enantiomorphic’) lay- and at the intersections of letters such as the li and lb at outs, local reflective symmetries and asymmetries, and the incipit of Matthew’s Gospel. rotations.16 In the present volume, Heather Pulliam docu- Insular art inherited rotational symmetry from Late ments the many instances of reflective symmetry and Celtic art also. The primary symmetry of the Witham asymmetry in the ornamentation of the Canon Tables.17 shield is rotational;8 the Battersea shield design is rota- The very architecture of the Canon Tables – four or five tional and reflective;9 rotation is the only symmetry on the columns and a semi-circular arcade – is mirror-­symmetric. Wandsworth shield boss,10 Broighter torc,11 and Lough By contrast, the symmetry of the carpet pages is largely Crew bone-slips,12 and is the dominant symmetry on the rotational. Three of the five carpet pages (fols. 94v, 138v bronze ‘scabbard-style’ plates from Lisnacrogher and the and 210v: ills. ix, xii, xv) have a rotationally-symmetric River Bann.13 Reflective symmetry also featured, within lay-out, as have the frames of the other two (the Latin limited contexts, in late Celtic art (British mirror-backs cross design of the carpets on fols. 2v and 26v, makes a are the outstanding example), but the influence of rota- rotational layout impossible: ills. i, v). The Lindisfarne tional symmetry was long-lived. In early Insular manu- ornamental incipits, like those in the Book of Kells, are script art, rotation made a powerful appearance as the generally of the ‘orchestral’ type in which panels display a over-arching symmetry in the Book of Durrow: reflection variety of symmetries that together contribute to the cel- is notably absent from the book, including from the zoo- ebratory nature of the illumination. In the long conjoined morphic page preceding John’s Gospel.14 The Echternach stems of the IN on fols. 95r and 211r, the interlace-types Gospels, from a period and perhaps a provenance close to used in the panels are chosen in a palindromic and hence the Lindisfarne Gospels, shows a similarly rigid adherence rotationally-symmetric manner, alternating from zoomor- to a rotationally symmetric design in the frames of the phic to knotwork and back to zoomorphic. The zoomor- evangelist symbol pages.15 phic stems of the inp in the Durham Gospels (dcl, A.II.17) are mirror-symmetric in pairs, while the curved ‘slant arm’ is predictably rotational.18 Symmetry and the Lindisfarne Artist To appreciate more deeply Eadfrith’s versatility with symmetry it is necessary to look at samples of his work on Where did Eadfrith position himself in relation to the trib- the cross-carpet pages. utaries of artistic symmetry that coalesced around Hiberno-Saxon artists in the late seventh and early eighth Folio 26v (Matthew Carpet Page) The multi-layering of the symmetries on the carpet page 7 R. Gameson, Manuscript Treasures of Durham Cathedral preceding Matthew’s Gospel (ill. v) could in theory be (London, 2010), no. 2. deconstructed, and the symmetries classified separately. 8 British Museum 1872, 1213.1. To take an example, although the motifs in the upper 9 British Museum 1857, 0715.1. The deviations from these symme- interstices (or ‘spandrels’) are not connected and there- tries are almost imperceptible and balance each other out! fore could have been mirror-imaged from one side of the 10 British Museum 1858, 1116.2. upper arm of the cross to the other, they are not. A cursory 11 nmi 1903.232. glance at corresponding birds’ heads along the upper 12 nmi 1941.1222. 13 Illustrated in Raftery, Pagan Celtic Ireland, fig. 103. The other type edges suggests that the interstices are mirror-imaged; of symmetry on the scabbards is glide-reflection – first slide, however, the central regions of the two panels are not then reflect – a symmetry-type that governs the design of most ­mirror-images but rather copies of each other, colour columns in eight of the sixteen Lindisfarne Canon Tables: fols. reversed. This exemplifies a ‘trick’ of Eadfrith’s whereby 10r (one column), 10v, 11r (ill. iii), 11v, 12r (ill. 6.9), 12v, 16v and 17r. one part of a motif participates in mirror symmetry while 14 The most intriguing rotational design is in the fretwork of the another part connected to it is involved in simple copying frame on fol. 2r. Rotation determined the designs of all the knot- work borders, of carpet pages 1v, 3v, 85v, most of 125v, all of 192v (the zoomorphic page: ill. 9.4) and 248v; it accounted for the pal- indromic layout of the knotwork in the incipit initials, and the palindromic colour-scheme of fol. 248r. 16 Swenson, ‘Symmetry Potentials’. 15 Paris, BnF, lat. 9389, fols. 18v, 75v, 115v, 176v: J.J.G. Alexander, 17 Chapter 6 above. Insular Manuscripts 6th–9th Century (London, 1978), cat. 11. 18 Gameson, Manuscript Treasures, no. 4 with ill. on p. 31.