| The introductory chapters review a century of Viking art criticism and how scholars have treated the material from Britain. A critique of some common methodological assumptions is also provided. A model for the analysis of decorative art in cross-cultural contexts follows. It works from a hypothesis involving three aspects of art: form, motif and style. Form is the most readily changeable aspect of a culture's art and will be the first to be abandoned should that culture migrate to another environment. Motif, the most adaptable aspect of art, is of little use in the identification of a given object's origins. Style is the aspect that provides the clues to cultural origins and "ownership." The gradual transformations which style experiences make it the most promising barometer for tracing the course of change in culture's art.;The model is applied to the art of the Vikings in Great Britain and Ireland. The results of this are: (1) no evidence is found for the production in Britain of ornaments of native Scandinavian form, (2) many instances of shared motifs appear with no certain knowledge of which culture invented them and, (3) it is only through an examination of style that cultural attributions are possible. Thus, in addition to providing a systematic approach to the analysis of Viking artifacts which appears to reflect the facts provided by the material, the model may have predictive capabilities. Patterns of stylistic adaptation in Britain are described with the observation that it is inappropriate to consider these products as an extension of, or aberration from, native Scandinavian artistic traditions. The study concludes with a catalog of over 250 artifacts, many of recent discovery. |
