The Art of the Picts: Sculpture and Metalwork in Early Medieval Scotland

The sculpture and metalwork of the Picts form one of the great enigmas of early medieval art. Marginalized and dismissed for many years by art historians as inchoate and provincial, the large surviving Pictish corpus of cross-slabs, incised stones, and metalwork remained until recently the territory of archaeologists and those bewitched by the mysterious, unfathomable symbols found in so much of the art.

Now, drawing upon art historical research and a lifetime of experience, George and Isabel Henderson show how the art of the Picts interacted with the currents of "Insular" art, and was produced by a sophisticated society capable of sustaining large-scale art programs. A masterpiece of scholarship and deduction, the book is illustrated with some 300 photographs and newly commissioned line drawings and maps. Throughout, the authors give strong consideration to the formal qualities and the iconography of the works, illuminating some of the more intractable problems associated with the Picts?not least the meaning of the supposedly "pagan" symbols.

With its acute analysis of Insular art and questioning of the function and meaning of Pictish art, this book will be of interest to art historians, archaeologists, and medievalists of all disciplines, and is arguably the most important publication on this subject in over a century. 300 illustrations.  more