160116 – Celts – British Museum, London

Looking at art works over 2500 years hold is a humbling experience. One is immediately aware of ones own insignificance. We occupy our place on spaceship earth for a nanosecond of geological time and within that micro duration we try to create something of value or of use that helps the collective that is the human race. We often talk of The Dark Ages or here The Noble Savage or The Pagan as if these were times without value. Design, technology, social and political structures are and have always been evolutionary the speed of development often controlled only by the speed of communication. The filigree work on a gold brooch from 700AD is as skillful and considered as any from the Middle Ages. The lynch pin that holds a wheel onto a fixed axle cart is as practical an engineering solution as was required. The meandering curves of Celtic art with elongated animals, deer and ducks, have an aesthetic sensibility and compositional skill still influential today.