Viking art
also: Norse art
Viking art - also called Norse art - is the art of the Scandinavian Norsemen and their settlements in the British Isles and Iceland across the Viking Age of the 8th to 11th centuries. It survives mostly in durable materials: carved metalwork, runestones and woodwork from ship burials, since wood, bone, ivory and textiles are preserved only rarely. Its characteristic vocabulary is interlacing animal ornament - writhing, ribbon-like beasts woven into dense, balanced patterns that share much with Celtic, Germanic and later Romanesque design. Scholars divide the material into a sequence of roughly chronological styles - Oseberg, Borre, Jellinge, Mammen, Ringerike and Urnes - though local traditions outside Scandinavia often blur the sequence. The art is entirely anonymous: no carver or smith is named, and its great monuments are ships, stones and stave churches.
Defining characteristics
- Dense interlace of ribbon-like, writhing animal bodies
- Horror vacui: ornament woven to cover the whole surface
- Abstracted beasts - gripping, biting, contorted - rather than naturalistic animals
- Strong two-dimensional design legible in relief on metal, wood and stone
- Six roughly chronological styles (Oseberg, Borre, Jellinge, Mammen, Ringerike, Urnes) with strong local variations
Key figures
- Gorm the Old (died c. 958) — Danish king who raised the older Jelling stone in memory of his wife Thyra
- Harald Bluetooth (died c. 985) — King who commissioned the great Jelling stone celebrating his conquests and Denmark's Christianization
Example works
- Oseberg ship (carved animal-head posts and panels) — Unrecorded Norse carvers (c. 820)
- The great Jelling stone — Unrecorded runemasters, commissioned by Harald Bluetooth (c. 965)
- Urnes stave church (carved north portal) — Unrecorded carvers (late 11th century)
Sources
- Viking art - WikiArt institution
- Viking art - Wikipedia encyclopedia