大英博物館のインスタグラム(britishmuseum) - 12月10日 00時57分

Continuing our seasonal posts inspired by #advent, this romantic #Celts painting depicts druids gathering mistletoe. In the late 19th century Celtic Revival artists began using archaeological discoveries to inform their imagined visions of the Celtic past. The themes of Celtic Revival paintings also sometimes came from ancient sources. These included early medieval myths, such as Irish tales of the Sidhe, a fairy people.

This painting by artists George Henry (1858–1943) and Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864–1933), depicts a group of druids, an ancient priesthood, emerging from a grove of oaks where they have been ceremonially gathering mistletoe. This romantic Victorian reimagining of a scene described by Roman author Pliny the Elder was intended to evoke an authentic Scottish past. The image incorporates elements that the artists thought of as Celtic: spiral motifs, the brilliant colours of illuminated manuscripts and a snake design inspired by Pictish stones.

The painters claimed the faces were based on ancient ‘druid’ skulls, but the features of the central druid were actually inspired by photographs of Native Americans. Centuries earlier, John White’s depictions of the Picts had also been inspired by indigenous groups in North America. In the absence of ancient images, these peoples continued to provide a model for representing the ancient inhabitants of Britain.

See this beautiful painting on loan from Glasgow Museums in our #Celts exhibition, until 31 January 2016.

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