OTAGO INSTITUTE

Evening Star, Issue 18048, 16 August 1922, Page 4

OTAGO INSTITUTE

LECTURE ON CELTIC ART. A meeting of ' the Analogical branch of the Otago Institute was held . It the Museum last night, the Rev. : £)r- Dickie (president ot the branch) . occupying the chair. The lecturer for the evening was Mr R; Bonn, who spoke on “Celtic Art.” • He stated that Celtic art showed a steady progression. Very commonly, . ,-when he asked pupils to make a simple - design, he was able to tell them that . their arrangement of lines and dots .■-..was a pattern about 4,000 years old. No race had altogether built its own system of art, but the influence of the ideas of other peoples could be 'definitely traced at different periods in the development of the system. The earliest historic reference to the art of the Celts w'as about the sixth century b.Om when they occupied a great part of Europe. Great cemeteries had been found wdiich threw great light on the early life of the Celts. The >arliest decorations of the brdnze age - were of the geometric type, and many of these he illustrated bn the blackboard. At all times- the work, though sometimes crude, showed/a remarkable taste and sense of proportion. The chief bronze age feature was the closewound spiral. He believed that all patterns were evolved by craft alone, the craftsman, seeking to work his idea Into his material. The. preference. for diagonals rather than straight linos wae.a characteristic of Celtic art. The Celt had a strong sense of the beauty of flowing lines and of the value of spaces. Until recent times no living thing “was used as the basis of his design. The Celt could use true enamel, which he must have learned from Egypt. From observations he had made he was inclined to the view that the Maoris got their decoration in the bronze age. He proceeded to trace the development of Celtic art in its early Christian period. One of the strange features of Celtic art was its crude' representation of the human figure alongside beautiful representations of such animals as deer and salmon. He concluded by telling something of the strange crude dwellings of the early dwellers in Scotland. A hearty vote of thanks was passed to Mr Donn for his very interesting address.