ABSTRACT
Govan might seem an unlikely source for insights into early medieval sculpture, given its strong associations in the contemporary mind with ship-building and postindustrial decline. Nevertheless recent scholarship has elevated Govan to the epicentre of artistic practice within the obscure post-Viking-Age British kingdom in Strathclyde. The Govan corpus is extraordinary — only Iona and St Andrews have produced larger collections — so it is perhaps understandable that it has dominated consideration of the north British sculpture. In this paper we wish to assess what a 'Govan School' might represent, and consider the historical significance of the term. We pursue these ends by reviewing the development of scholarly thinking on the subject and by presenting the results of new research on the historical and landscape contexts of a selection of these monuments. 1 The industrial transformation of Strathclyde has been so great that it is generally difficult to appreciate the significance of the original settings of these monuments. In thinking about the positioning of the sculpture we have been influenced by the insights of landscape archaeologists 2 and have drawn upon our own experience of the Strathclyde landscape. Although we have not studied the landscape settings systematically or attempted the sort of phenomenological analyses advocated by Ingold 3 and Tilley, 4 landscape position emerges as one of the key attributes for understanding the original significance of the Strathclyde sculpture. Moreover, we believe that an appreciation of the significance of landscape position is also critical for the management of these monuments as a cultural resource, particularly if they are to regain some value in the modern world.
