Anglo-Saxon Art - Aftermath

Aftermath

Relatively little art survives from the rest of the century after 1066, or at least is confidently dated to that period. The art of Normandy was already under heavy Anglo-Saxon influence, but the period was one of massive despoliation of the churches by the small new ruling class, who had almost entirely dispossessed the old Anglo-Saxon elite. Under these circumstances little significant art was produced, but when it was, the style often showed a slow development of Anglo-Saxon styles into a fully Romanesque version. The attribution of many individual objects has jumped around across the boundary of the Norman Conquest, especially for sculpture, including ivories. A number of objects are claimed for their period by both the "Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art" and the "English Romanesque art: 1066-1200" exhibition catalogues, despite both being published in 1984. These include the ivory triangle mount with angels and the "Sigurd" stone relief fragment (discussed above), both from Winchester, and the ivory "pen-case" and Baptism (illustrated above), both in the British Museum.

The energy, love of complicated twining ornament, and refusal to wholly respect a dignified classical decorum that are displayed in both Insular and Winchester school art had already influenced continental style, as discussed above, where it provided an alternative to the heavy monumentality that Ottonian art displays even in small objects. This habit of mind was an essential component of both the Romanesque and Gothic styles, where forms of Anglo-Saxon invention such as the inhabited and historiated initials became more important than they ever had in Anglo-Saxon art itself, and works like the Gloucester Candlestick (c. 1110) show the process in other media.

Anglo-Saxon iconographical innovations include the animal Hellmouth, the ascending Christ shown only as a pair of legs and feet disappearing at the top of the image, the horned Moses, St John the Evangelist standing at the foot of the cross and writing, and God the Father creating the world with a pair of compasses. All of these were later used across Europe. The earliest developed depiction of the Last Judgement in the West is also found on an Anglo-Saxon ivory.