Reddit reviews Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction (Dover Art Instruction)

I've been fascinated by Celtic art since I saw photos of the Book of Kells, Book of Durrow and the Lindisfarne Gospels when I was a kid.

I found this book (Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction by George Bain) that explains how these kind of drawings were made. It's amazing how something so complex can be made with very simple methods.

Looks pretty good!

Celtic knotwork is kind of an obsession of mine and what I say is more for education that criticism. The two important rules of Celtic knots are the lines always go under-over-under-over. You've done perfectly at that. The second is that the knot is one continuous line. This you've haven't quite got. Each of your knots is two intertwined lines. There are a lot of tricks to getting your knot to be continuous lines.

If you'd like to learn traditional methods I cannot recommend Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction, by George Bain enough. It's the bible on doing Celtic knot correctly.

>lyric poetry 30% (mainly symbolism)
art history 25% (mainly Renaissance and symbolism)
Russian literature 15%
epic poetry 10%
philosophy 10% (mainly Greeks, Spinoza, Camus, etc.)
linguistics 5%
religions 5% (mainly Christianity)

I know you didn't express any interest in it in your post, but I'm going to give my case for Irish Gaelic.

It has a solid quantity of lyric poetry, epic poetry, symbolic art history, and historical Christian documents. I believe it would engage a full 75% of your interests.

How the Irish Saved Civilisation by Thomas Cahill is a book about the Christian monks of 5th-11th century Ireland. These monks are hailed as having maintained a beacon of literacy in Dark Age Europe with their religious and historical writings.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Irish-Saved-Civilization-Irelands/dp/0385418493

Gaelic is also super interesting linguistically. Mordern Irish is nearly mutually intelligable with Old Irish. Far from being archaic or traditional, Gaelic is a punk rocker on the linguistics scene. It doesn't fit into your language's rat race of 'patterns', and 'rules'. Gaelic is simultaneously a graffiti language and an instrument of poetry. Ireland's poetic tradition is long and in both English and Irish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_poetry

Celtic art has quite a rich and ancient tradition. It's not the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel, but prehistoric through dark age Irish/Pictish art has many subtle secrets to appreciate. We didn't really understand the knotwork until the 20th century. The symbolic meaning of carvings in pre-historic Scotland are still shrouded in mystery today.

https://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Art-Methods-Construction-Instruction/dp/0486229238/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2NIOFHDXK0R0P&keywords=george+bain+celtic+art&qid=1554692813&s=gateway&sprefix=george+bain&sr=8-1

Irish is in a revival, Ireland is beautiful, and most importantly, Irish is on Duolingo.

Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction by George Bain is the original and still the best book on knotwork.

If you like this kind of knotwork, this is an awesome book about it.