ABSTRACT
In the Book of Kells the native repertoire of abstract ornament is combined with imports from the representational art of the Mediterranean world, such as vine-scrolls, lions, peacocks and human figures. Different categories of ornament, which are clearly defined and separated as if within the cell-walls of a piece of precious metalwork in other Insular gospel books, occasionally overspill their boundaries in the Book of Kells. Discerning the form of the words, whose letters are distorted in shape and relative size and veiled by the ornament, provides some visual analogy to the monastic practice of lectio divina in which the reader meditatively seeks the spiritual meaning concealed beneath the literal text of the Scriptures. Even the interlace ornament is formed from vine-scrolls and stylised birds, serpents, quadrupeds and humans. The following verse begins the account of the Incarnation, which stresses Christ’s divine as well as his human nature.
