Celtic Pattern: Visual Rhythms of the Ancient Mind

by Adam Tetlow

Overview

How do you draw Celtic knotwork? What are the secrets of keys? Are there tricks for drawing Celtic spirals? What do these mysterious patterns actually mean? Who drew them? Where did they come from?

In this exquisite pocket book, author and artist Adam Tetlow shows us the practical tricks of the trade and the hidden principles behind the ancient magical science of Celtic artwork. With examples from both early and later periods, illustrations by the author and rare engravings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781952178009
Publisher:	Wooden Books
Publication date:	07/01/2021
Series:	Wooden Books North America Editions
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.33(d)

About the Author

Adam Tetlow is an artist and writer. A teacher at the world-renowned Prince’s School for Traditional Arts in London, he lives in Essex with his architect wife and three children.
 

Read an Excerpt

The line has always been at our service—tool and companion on our journey into being, it has measured, mapped, woven and wriggled its way through our lives, its quicksilver flexibility fueling our discoveries.
We harness lines to make our world, to bind language into time, to connect and protect, surround and select. They are our means for bringing our imagination into existence, our will manifested.
Ancient societies were fascinated by the magic and poetry of the line, for within the patterns it described they saw the face of eternity, those qualities we name numbers. To study number is to study permanence—numbers are forever, they do not change, they are change. Traditional geometry studies the quality of number in space using cord, compass and straight edge. It is rooted in the idea of a cosmos embroidered with number by causal intelligence.
As true philosophers, Celts, Druid and Christian, lived in a world of vision, seeing nature as both living presence and vast book, written in a language of symbolic analogy (sometimes known as “the language of the birds” or “the green language”). This vision of meaning in nature is nowhere better expressed than in the flowing ornament and rigorous geometry of Celtic art.
So join us as we follow the adventures of line through the Celtic world, as it winds its way from prehistory to the first books. Tracing its path we will see into the minds of the Celtic artists, unfolding their intent and imaginings, reconstructing their technical mastery and its strictures, and learning through practice to join the action of hand, eye and heart, and see a glimpse of an immanent reality.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Primordial Symbols 2

Measuring Heaven & Earth 4

Celtic Constructions 6

Living Lines 8

Totemic Visions 10

Early Insular 12

Faces of the Other 14

Different Tonsures 16

Assorted Spiral Centers 18

Recursive Roundels 20

A Paleolithic Meander 22

Unlocking Key Panels 24

Sawtooths and Arrowheads 26

Folding Solutions 28

Turning Keys 30

A Braided Line 32

Roots of Knots 34

Variations on a Theme 36

Knots of Roots 38

Woven Labyrinths 40

Animated Creatures 42

Entangled Nature 44

Region of the Summer Stars 46

A Multitude of Shapes 48

Appendix I Grids 50

Appendix II Spirals 52

Appendix III Keys 54

Appendix IV Knots 56

Appendix V Illuminations 58

Editorial Reviews

"Stunning." — The New York Times

"Excellent." — New Scientist

"Fascinating." — Financial Times

"Beautiful." — London Review of Books

"Genuinely mind-expanding." — Fortean Times

"Rich and Artful." — The Lancet

From the Publisher