Making and meaning in insular art

Rachel Moss, editor

‘This richly-illustrated volume contains most of the papers delivered at the fifth international conference on Insular art … The various contributions provide a rich and thought-provoking overview of the development of Insular art, over the period 500–1200 … Overall, the paper provides welcome insights into the artistic and intellectual milieux in which buildings and artefacts were produced during the period. In particular, they display a thorough knowledge of the transmission of models and sources of inspiration and show that the Insular world, far from being geographically remote, maintained long-distance contacts, and was well aware of continental models … [The publication] provides exciting insights into the fascinating associations between the antique, classical, early medieval, Continental, and Insular Worlds’, Dr Dagmar Raedel Ó Riain, Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.

‘This is a marvellous book … there are twenty-three essays on many topics by various authors … there are so many profound and detailed essays in this book … there is true scholarship in these essays which respectfully interpret the various art forms from the whole medieval period. There is no condescension or any sarcasm which would typify a modern, superficial TV documentary about any one of these subjects. The wide-ranging yet profound scholarship so manifest in this book makes one wonder whence our future scholars are to be found if our schools no longer teach Latin. This is a book based on Faith, Reason and History, but if there is one word to sum up this book it is this: Integrity', Peter Cosgrove, Seancas Ard Maca: Journal of the Armagh diocesan historical society (2009).

'Initiated at Cork in 1985, conferences devoted to Insular art have since occurred in various locations at four- to five-year intervals. This is the proceedings of the fifth such event, held in Dublin in 2005. Though each has had a different publisher, the resulting volumes have all been substantial and handsome, and this newest volume to the sequence is no exception’, Richard Gameson, Ecclesiastical History (April 2008).

‘The volume is well illustrated with b&w and a series of color plates, all of excellent quality’, Art Book News Annual (2008).

‘The book is attractively laid out, the photographic reproductions are usually of high quality, and while line drawings are used more successfully in some articles than in others, text and image usually compliment each other well', Michael Staunton, Studia Hibernica (2008/9).