Ringerike style

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The Ringerike style (also: rune stone style) is a Viking Age art style in Scandinavia. Its distribution period extends from the beginning to the second half of the 11th century . It is named after the Norwegian landscape Ringerike or after the Ringerike sandstone from which many rune stones in this style are made. He appears on metal and wooden carvings, pieces of jewelry and weapons as well as rune stones from this period.

Emergence

Timeline of the artistic styles of the Viking Age

Towards the beginning of the 11th century, the Ringerike style emerged from the Mammen style through further development of certain features. The influences of Ottonian and Anglo-Saxon book illumination intensified and led to a further emphasis on the floral tendril patterns, which thereby gained even more weight compared to the main motif. The introduction of the Ringerike style coincides with the Christianization of Scandinavia and Iceland. It is therefore believed that this style was spread under the auspices of the emerging Christian church. The church panels from Flatatunga in Iceland, which probably originally adorned the cathedral of Hólar, one of the two Icelandic bishoprics, can serve as evidence of this. The panel remains are the oldest surviving parts of church decorations in Scandinavia.

characterization

Ringerike-style initial D from a Cambridge manuscript.
The runestone of Vang , Oppland, Norway.
Runestone from Drävle, Uppland, Sweden.

The art styles of the Viking Age are ornamental styles and are composed of three subject areas:

  • Figures, i.e. people and depictions of animals
  • Depictions of plants (tendrils, leaves)
  • geometric figures (circles, triangles, spirals )

The Ringerike style uses the same animal figures as the previous Mammen style: lion (or the great beast ), bird and snake. The innovations of the Ringerike style consist in the tighter, clearer contours of the motifs, which are now depicted in an even more naturalistic way. The Ringerike style also places more emphasis on symmetrical representations, tendril motifs are often mirrored on an axis, for example on some rune stones. The leaf and tendril ornaments appearing for the first time in the Mammen style are very much expanded in the Ringerike style and give it its characteristic appearance. The tendrils are typically arranged in two different ways: on the one hand, they can consist of alternations of broad lobes and narrow tendrils. In the other case, from interwoven thin tendrils. These groups of narrow tendrils were taken over from Ottonian book art, while the alternation of narrow-leaved and broad tendrils has its models in Anglo-Saxon art. The tendrils are mostly placed asymmetrically outside the main motif and thus serve as a filling of free space.

The finds of objects decorated in the Ringerike style in England show that the Anglo-Saxon region moved closer to the Scandinavian culture again through the Danish conquest and inclusion in the North Sea region of Knut the Great . Since the Anglo-Saxon book illumination traditionally used tendril patterns, it could be easily combined with the Ringerike style. The Stone of St. Paul in London or the initial in a Cambridge manuscript are examples of this synthesis.

Ringerike style in Ireland

The Ringerike style was also used in Ireland. During excavations in Fishamble Street in Dublin in particular, several examples of a special school of carving were found. Until the late 11th century, there was barely any noticeable influence from Viking Age art styles in Irish art. With the Ringerike style, however, the traditional Irish knot patterns were combined with the elements of Viking ornamentation for the first time. The attention of the Dublin wood carving school was more on artistic creations of braided ribbon and loop ornamentation and less on the floral origins of the ornaments of the Ringerike style. In addition to the finds from Dublin, the Glankeen bell relic is evidence that Irish workshops also used the Ringerike style. The case surrounding the bell of St. Cuilean is intricately decorated with niello work and copper and silver wire inlays in the Ringerike style. An Irish Ringerike pattern can already be found in the " Cathach ", the oldest surviving Irish manuscript.

  • Gravestone of St. Paul, London, UK. Face plate of a sarcophagus. Found next to a skeleton in the cemetery of St. Paul in 1852. Large animal similar to the one on the Heggen weather vane.

  • Ship flag from Heggen , Buskerud, Norway. On one side a lion or so-called large animal together with a smaller lion, on the other side a bird fighting a snake. This combines the three main motifs of the Ringerike style in one piece.

  • Wooden fragments of wall panels from a homestead in Flatatunga, Iceland. Ringerike style decorations. The panels were originally part of a church from the early 11th century. After that, they were used as lumber for centuries.

Sample finds

See also

literature

  • Reinhard Barth: Pocket dictionary Vikings . Piper, Munich Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-492-23420-8 (short description)
  • Ewert Cagner: The Vikings . 3. Edition. Burkhard-Verlag Ernst Heyer, Essen 1992, ISBN 3-87117-000-3 (with several detailed sample drawings and large-format photos)
  • Hildegard Elsner: Viking Museum Haithabu: Showcase of an early city . 2nd Edition. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994 (overview of individual styles with sample drawings)
  • James Graham-Campbell: The Lives of the Vikings . Universitas Verlag in FA Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-8004-1297-7 (popular science, detailed presentation and photos)
  • Joachim Hermann [Ed.]: Vikings and Slavs . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982 (overview with sample drawings)
  • Arnold Muhl and Rainer-Maria Weiss: Vikings, Varangians and Normans: the Scandinavians and Europe 800 to 1200 . Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-88609-304-2 (exhibition catalog with text contributions and pictures in the catalog section)
  • Michael Müller-Wille and Lars Olof Larsson: Animals - People - Gods. Viking age art styles and their modern reception . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-86309-8 (collection of lectures on all Viking Age styles as well as the chronological classification of wooden finds and duration of individual art styles)
  • AG Smith: Viking Designs . Dover Publications Inc., Mineola 1999, ISBN 0-486-40469-2 (numerous disordered drawings of various Viking Age styles)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Fuglesang in: Muhl / Weiss: Wikinger . Page 179.
  2. ^ Fuglesang: Animal ornament: the late Viking period . In: Müller-Wille & Larsson: Animals - People - Gods . Page 169.
  3. ↑ see also: Muhl / Weiss: Wikinger . Page 346. The panels were last used as timber on a farm.
  4. ^ Graham-Campbell: Vikings . Page 152.
  5. ↑ Illustration and short description in: Muhl / Weiß: Wikinger . Page 340.
  6. ↑ after Smith: Viking Design , p. 27.
  7. ↑ after Smith: Viking Design , p. 22.

Web links

Previous art style Mummy
style 		Ringerike style
early 11th century - second half 11th century 		Subsequent art style
Urnes style