Zoomorphic ornament
Object number: ROMGH.1999.23
Type: Drawing
Technique: Drawn
Material: Paper, Pen and ink, Pencil
Width: 25.4cm | Height: 20.2cm
Production date: 1946 - 1962
For this drawing Bain studied the first plate in his copy of Sir Edward Sullivan’s volume on the Book of Kells. He found tiny panels in one of the ‘Eusebian Canons‘ illuminated pages that especially interested and attracted him. Bain enlarged the designs to create these drawings. This meant he could figure out how the interlaced men, bird and beasts related to each other.
In one case he annotated the drawing to make clear which parts of the man and bird were interlaced. He included these three designs in the Zoomorphics section of Methods of Construction. Bain used them again later, when he created one of his large, colourful posters that he used as teaching aids.
See: The Book of Kells MS58 TCD folio 5r Trinity College Dublin and E Sullivan 1920 The Book of Kells Plate 1
See Bain's Celtic Art, Methods of Construction Page 112, plate 8 & Page115, plate 13
Author: Jill Harden
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