Celtic Pattern: Visual Rhythms of the Ancient Mind (Wooden Books North America Editions) - Softcover

Tetlow, Adam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1952178002 ISBN 13: 9781952178009

Publisher: Wooden Books, 2021

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.
 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wooden Books
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1952178002
• ISBN 13: 9781952178009
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64