This angular, geometric design seems to have been a favourite of George Bain’s when creating knitting charts. The straight lines of the key pattern are easily transferred onto grid-paper, unlike the sinuous curves of interlace. The stepped lines, so obvious at this scale, merge into smooth diagonals once you move back. 

This particular design is the most commonly used across insular art. Bain shows readers how to construct it as the very first example in his illustrations of key patterns.

Here we see Bain playing around, rotating and mirroring the basic cell of the design. He uses colour to create quite different panels. Were any of these ever knitted into finished items by the crafters that Bain wrote to and sent patterns? We have yet to find out.

Claire, George Bain’s daughter, hung this wooden key holder next to her back door. Designed by her father, we presume he carved it too.

The interlaced continuous strand has been turned into knotwork. The top two-thirds of the design is formed of a single tight unit of three knots rotated three times. The strand then forms a different, much more open design in the lower third.

In his study of knotwork panels Bain expresses admiration for the Pictish sculptors who created them. He was convinced that such single strand interlace designs are a symbol of eternity.

See: Bain’s Celtic Art, Methods of Construction pages 40-55

The choice of colours focuses the eye on the embroidery of interlacing and knotwork in orange, blue and mauve. It clearly shows the complexity of the design. Presumably drawn by Bain, it may have been embroidered by one of his students or a member of his family.

The interlaced central flower with its mauve centre and the knotwork surrounds are all worked in stem stitch. The very simple, orange linear border is stitched in herringbone.

Across the globe interlaced knotwork designs were inspired by plaiting & basket weaving. However George Bain believed knotwork interlacing to be peculiar to Pictish and early Irish forms of Celtic art.

See: Bain’s Celtic Art, Methods of Construction page 25

This large drawing of the back of the Nigg Pictish cross-slab is full of fascination. It is not just a wonderful artwork. It seems that Bain wanted to set the record straight following publication of drawings by another artist in 1944. The notes in the margins show that he was not impressed with the illustrations. He felt that Gibb had copied some of the geometric panels wrongly.

We know from a photograph in Methods of Construction that Bain studied this side of the stone in person. He wasn’t just interested in the knotwork, interlace and key patterns. He also does his best to interpret the remains of the figural sculpture, although it is very badly weathered.

Comparison with a modern technical drawing shows where he too has mis-understood the original elements. For example, it’s not a Pictish mirror and comb symbol to the left of the horse and rider. It’s actually a man playing cymbals, from one of the biblical stories of the life of David.

See: Diack, FC ‘The inscriptions of Pictland. An essay on the sculptured and inscribed stones of the North-East and North of Scotland’ edited by Alexander, WM & Macdonald J in Third Spalding Club, vol 13 (1944)

Bain seems to have had a particular fondness for the Rossie Priory cross-slab. It presented him with a very useful example of the continuous Pictish knotwork line with which he was almost obsessed. It also sports some very fine Pictish riders, another special interest.

This drawing seems to be the first in a series of the stone.  What is particularly interesting is that it isn’t accurate.  On the original sculpture the knotwork designs against the left and right of the central boss of the cross are asymmetrical. In this drawing Bain ‘mirrors’ the design. Why he did this is not known. Was it because he wanted to concentrate attention on the two ‘ends’ of the continuous line? Or perhaps he just hadn’t appreciated the asymmetrical treatment of the original at this stage.

We also don’t know from what sources Bain was working. The Rossie Priory stone is located west of Dundee. It’s not too far from his home in Kirkcaldy, where he stayed from 1919 to 1946. However, he uses ballpoint pens for this drawing. They weren’t in general use until after 1947, when he was living in Drumnadrochit. Perhaps he used his copy of Early Christian Monuments of Scotland by Allen and Anderson as his reference. 

This large drawing by George Bain is one of four that he made of the Pictish sculpted cross-slab at Nigg in Easter Ross. The two panels with bosses surrounded by snakes particularly fascinated him. He probably wanted to draw them out at full size in order to understand the design details.

Each panel has 20 snakes, but the overall results are quite different. This panel only has four large circular bosses. It uses the remaining space for a complex design of interlaced snakes and spirals in three dimensions. When drawn, as here, the different heights of the small sculpted bosses (the spirals) are not obvious. They lie around and within an oval form that is divided saltire cross-wise into four. The shapes are all defined by the snakes bodies.

Bain specifically comments about details of an interpretation of this panel, drawn by A Gibbs to accompany an essay by FC Diack published in 1944. Unusually, the notes do not reveal whether or not Bain agrees.

See: Diack, FC ‘The inscriptions of Pictland. An essay on the sculptured and inscribed stones of the North-East and North of Scotland’ edited by Alexander, WM & Macdonald J in Third Spalding Club, vol 13 (1944)

This teaching aid by Bain is an impressive life-size drawing of part of the Nigg cross-slab in Ross-shire. The panel on the stone is only 30cm wide. Nevertheless, it manages to contain the lively writhing of the 20 snakes. Set to one side of a Christian cross, the serpents symbolise eternity. The shedding of their skins is seen as a metaphor for the resurrection.

When compared to the actual stone Bain’s drawing is not entirely accurate or complete. But he gleefully comments in the margin that it is more accurate than that in a contemporary publication.  The Nigg cross-slab is one of the few objects that we know he visited and studied directly. A photograph of Bain sketching the other side of stone is included in his Methods of Construction.

It seems that Bain’s intention was to draw attention to the bold, overall design of the panel rather than the detail. He demonstrates the designer’s skilful melding of zoomorphic ornament with other Pictish decorative elements: raised bosses, interlace, spirals and knotwork. 

See FC Diack’s contribution in the Third Spalding Club’s 13th publication, 1944

This large drawing by George Bain is a study based on the key patterned panel on the shaft of the Nigg cross-slab. Both drawings use exactly the same design of 3 by 10 repeats. But they are different sizes because the angle of the diagonal is not the same. That on the right is 45 degrees and that on the left is 50 degrees.

Bain must have seen that the Pictish sculptor’s key pattern is not set at 45 degrees and wondered why. He knew that the sculptor had the proportions of the Nigg panel that needed to be infilled. So the artist must then have changed the angle of the diagonal of the key pattern to make it fit. We think this poster neatly illustrates the different outcomes. It shows what happens when alternative geometries are applied to key pattern.

George Bain was very interested in the smaller cross design on the Ulbster stone in Caithness. It is one of the few Pictish sculpted stones that he drew in various ways. Looking at his finished versions of the Ulbster cross it is easy to see why he was fascinated by it. The flowing knotwork motif rotates and mutates into a more angular form in its central square. The symmetry is particularly pleasing to the eye.

Here Bain explores several different ideas. Around the drawing in the middle of the poster he separates out the elements that make the Ulbster cross. He draws the various stages. But the main focus of the poster is on a development of the pattern at the centre of the original.

Bain draws together all of the angular knotwork around and in the middle of the small cross on the Ulbster stone. It all lies within a large, diagonally set square. He clearly delights in this exploration of the design. It’s something he had already teased out in his book Methods of Construction. Then, at the bottom, he notes his own ideas about similarities to designs found in other, earlier, cultural contexts in Europe.

George Bain created numerous posters to illustrate the methods of construction of knotwork and other geometric designs. Using certain reference books, he drew enlarged details from photographs of illuminated gospel books. Or he increased the size of certain drawings of Pictish cross-slabs that appear in The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland. Here Bain focusses on one of the crosses on the Ulbster stone.

This study shows how to draw the equal armed cross. Bain uses pencil, ruler and compasses to lay out the knotworked five crosses within the single cross. He shows the first stages by going over the light pencil lines with ballpoint pen. There’s fine black for the saltire crosses and red for the central lines of the knotwork design.

Then Bain shows how to complete the pattern in the other squares. Either side of the central line he uses thicker black lines to make the wide strand. He then rubs out the pencilled central line and shades in the background. He adds inner lines to the strand to enhance the design.

J R Allen & J Anderson 1903 The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland page 34

This poster by George Bain is one in a series that focusses on the Ulbster cross-slab. He seems to have been fascinated by the symmetry of the knotwork design, which is made from a continuous strand. It also appears more than once in his book Methods of Construction.

There are four posters in the group, all showing different aspects of this small cross. At some stage they were taped together. Perhaps Bain wanted to show off this under-stated Pictish masterpiece to people at his lectures. It is intriguing that he hasn’t added any notes to the drawing. Maybe it was his act of celebration for one of the Pictish designs that he most admired.

George Bain seems to have been fascinated by the continuous knotwork design in this small cross on the Ulbster stone. He drew it in various forms. Here his note shows that he wanted people to be able to follow the knotwork easily. He achieves this aim by drawing the design as a narrow blue strand. This makes it very clear that the knotwork is created from a never-ending line.

On many of his posters Bain emphasises the importance of the single continuous line. It was a vital feature of Pictish interlace design, representing eternity in the early Christian context.