Pictures and drawings of the human figure are not so
common as in the work of other schools, and when they
do appear are not often good. Still, some of them, as the
scenes from the life of Christ in the Book of Kells, are quite
unlike the illuminations of any other school; while the
portraits of the Evangelists in the same book, in the Book
of MacRegol, and in the Lindisfarne Gospels, are singularly
interesting. Floral work is also rare. But in geometrical
ornament, beautifully symmetrical--diagonal patterns, zigzags,
waves, lozenges, divergent spirals, intertwisted and
interwoven ribbon and cord work--and in grotesque
zoological forms,--lizards, snakes, hounds, birds, and dragons'
heads,--the Irish school attained their highest artistic
development. Their art is striking, not for originality, not
for its beauty, which is nevertheless great, but for painstaking.
Knowing but one style of making a book beautiful,
they lavished much time and loving care to achieve their
end. The detail is extraordinarily minute and complicated.
"I have counted," writes Professor Westwood, "[with
a magnifying glass] in a small space scarcely three-quarters
of an inch in length by less than half an inch in width, in
the Book of Armagh, no less than 158 interlacements of a
slender ribbon pattern formed of white lines edged with
black ones.
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