ABSTRACT
In later examples of La Tène Early Style ornament around the end of the fifth century, Celtic artists reveal a restless aspiration to imbue their work with a sense of movement, manifesting itself in what the Megaws have called a ‘transformation of static into continuous design’ (Megaw and Megaw, 2001, 103). This trend can be seen even within a classic Early Style assemblage like the Schwarzenbach grave-group, the openwork gold bowl from which was examined in detail earlier. A novel element of the base design (Figure 4.1A, 1) is the triskele, or three-cornered whorl, each corner ending in a circlet and the whole defining a curving-sided triangle. These are ordered nevertheless as independent elements, sharing no common sides or corners with the next triskele. Integration of the design is achieved by additional curves between the circlets of adjacent triskeles to create a simple lotus plant that does then share part of its outline with its neighbours. As if to stress the pedigree of the lotus, a stamen is inserted between its base and the border of the design. In the alternate spaces, the sides of the triskeles face each other almost as an opposed pair of S-spirals. As Jacobsthal (1944, 78) observed, therefore, the base design can be alternatively read as a chain of triskeles, or as a series of lotuses and lyres, depending on whether foreground or background is dominant. But in essence, the bowl base remains firmly a product of the Early Style.
