The Book of Kells - a review

This blog reviews several modern print books about the Book of Kells. In its original form, it is an early medieval manuscript, written, drawn and illuminated in splendid style, around the year 800 AD, in what has come to be called “Celtic art”. The nearly supernatural beauty and quality inspired these words to be written nearly 300 years after its creation, “Look more keenly at it and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art. You will make out intricacies, so delicate and subtle, so exact and compact, so full of knots and links, with colours so fresh and vivid, that you might say that all this was the work of an angel, and not of a man.” (Gerald of Wales, Topographia Hiberniae, 1188 AD)

First I would like to address the very basic facts. The Book of Kells is associated with Ireland. The early 20^th century Celtic Revival writer James Joyce described it as, “the most purely Irish thing we have”. Since the earliest recorded mentions of it, it was the monastery at Kells, in County Meath. In 1654 AD it was entrusted to Trinity College in Dublin, where it remains today. It is a highly decorated book of the four Christian Gospels, copied in Latin on calf skin vellum. The Book is incomplete. Some of it was lost to damage. Some of the pages remain unfinished. Many of the beautiful pages are of such high quality of design, imagination and detail that they are seen as the architype of medieval Celtic art. Victoria Whitworth writes, “…mid-17^th century, when the Book departed for Trinity College Dublin and changed its function from relic to art-historical artifact and emblem of national consciousness.” (Whitworth, chapter titled The Afterlives of the Book of Kells, page 285) Details from the Book began to be reused and reproduced in the mid-19^th century and continues to the present. Thus, the Book of Kells became a style book for recovering Celtic art for contemporary purposes, always with a sense of heritage and reference to the past.

Book of Kells Faksimile Verlag, 1990

When it was obvious that his life was nearing its end, my friend and fellow Celtic jeweler John Urban (1945-2023), gifted me his treasured facsimile copy of the Book of Kells, A limited edition of full-sized, faithful copies of all 680 pages, including irregular page edges and holes, was published in Switzerland (Faksimile Verlag, 1990). These were originally priced at an eye-popping $14,000 per copy! This was a very generous gift. Some images on this blog are photographed from this facsimile edition.

The serious scholars of Celtic art will find this edition a thrilling thing of beauty. As Trinity College has made access to the original Book of Kells very restricted, seeing the Faksimile is as close an experience as most of us can expect. Used Faksimile copies are frequently now being offered at around $5,000. Still very expensive, but a considerable discount from the original MSRP. I recently saw a copy offered for $1,500. As even this may still be beyond your price range, Trinity College has every page online for free access at Work | Book of Kells. IE TCD MS 58 | ID: hm50tr726 | Digital Collections

The BOOK OF KELLS unlocking the enigma, Victoria Whitworth, Bloomsbury Publishing 2025

This is the newest major book about the BoK. The prerelease publicity made much of Victoria’s theory that it may be a product of Pictish Scotland. There is no surviving manuscripts attributed to the Pictish culture. Is it possible that the greatest of all medieval manuscripts is the only surviving book of the Picts? Recent archeology at Portmohomack on the Tarbat peninsula, northeast of Inverness, uncovered the ruins of an 8^th century monastery, complete with vellum making workshop. The monastery is also a treasure trove of elaborately carved stone sculpture with stylistic similarity to the BoK. The evidence is certainly not proof that the BoK was made in this specific monastery, however it does suggest that it is plausible.

I had the good fortune to be present at the Early Christian Ireland Conference in March 2022 at the Saint Patrick Centre in Downpatrick. Victoria gave a presentation titled The Book of Kells; a Pictish Gospel Book? This was one of Victoria’s first public arguments for this theory. Surprisingly, the largely Irish audience did not object with shock or loathing that someone would undermine the claim of a native Irish provenance for what has long been an iconically Irish treasure. She challenges the “broad scholarly consensus that the BoK was (probably) made on the tiny Atlantic island of Iona”. Iona, presently part of Scotland, was the site of an Irish monastery founded by Saint Columba (Columcille) in the 6^th century. This supposedly controversial theory was offered by the author as a plausible possibility, supported by archeological and stylistic evidence. It made a good publicity hook for media coverage of the book, but the book itself is much broader than this single topic.

Since the mid-19^th century much of the writing on Celtic art subjects has been descriptive. Commentary on comparative style and historical context are generally overlaid with interpretations of symbolism that focus on conventional iconic themes. Victoria’s book goes far beyond. She gets inside the heads of the artists and discusses less obvious and quirky details that are unique to the BoK.

As the BoK has become synonymous with Celtic medieval manuscript style in the popular imagination, Victoria points out quite explicitly that it is far from typical. While the style elements are quite common across contemporary medieval artistic culture, the BoK is an outlier rather than standard fair. She extensively examines the complexity and variety of the art as well as innovations in the text. The relationship between the illumination and the text is wonderfully explained.

Victoria’s book is beautifully designed with plentiful and gorgeous illustrations. It is also very readable. Often literature of this degree of scholarly authority is dense with the jargon of the academic specialist. This book is refreshingly easy to read. The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma: Victoria Whitworth: Apollo - Bloomsbury

THE BOOK OF KELLS A Masterwork Revealed: Creators, Collaboration, and Campaigns by Dr. Donncha MacGabhann Sunstone Press 2022. 

Over the past several centuries it has been supposed that the production of the BoK required a large group of artists and scribes. MacGabhann  argues very convincingly that it was actually the work of only two people, presumably monks.  MacGabhann’s book precedes Whitworth’s by three years. Whitworth acknowledges and agrees with MacGabhann’s description of the team of the Master-Artist and the Scribe-Artist. Donncha entered the world of academic research later in his life. He finished his PhD in 2016 after retiring as an art teacher in County Limerick.

This book looks at the BoK with the eye of an artist. Perhaps the most delightful aspect of MacGabhann’s approach and insight is that he recognizes the style, preference for variation and personality of the artists as individuals. Of course, this approach involves a certain amount of imagination and speculation, but his observations are very convincing.

The introduction of A Masterwork Revealed is rather lengthy in relation to the size of the book. This is really quite alright, as the introduction, in my opinion, is the best part and the most easily understood. The following chapters go into greater depth on themes already revealed in the introduction.

MacGabhann tells us that the BoK was created in two “campaigns”. He believes that much of the book was laid out and organized by the Master-Artist, who worked together with the Scribe-Artist for the first campaign. The most splendid and complex carpet pages, notably the Chi Rho page and the Eight Circle Cross, are the work of the Master-Artist. The Scribe-Artist did all the lettering, hundreds of smaller decorative initials, but also collaborated with the Master-Artist on some of the fully illuminated pages as well as doing many himself.

The second campaign appears to have resumed after an interruption in the progress of the project. The hand of the Master-Artist is absent from the second campaign. We can only speculate if that was because of health, loss of vision, death, or some other reason. During the second campaign the personality of the Scribe-Artist continues to be recognized, however, the quality of the artwork shows indications of declining ability. The Scribe-Artist was dedicated to continuing towards finishing the BoK, despite his failing eyesight and age-related struggles. He often added details of lesser quality to pages that already were illuminated when he and the Master-Artist were in their prime, giving the impression that a lesser artist had his hand in the process. MacGabhann carefully traces the evolution and decline of the Scribe-Artist across the pages, seeing a continuum of style and artistic consistency which are described and documented by MacGabhann’s keen observations. Sunstone Press The Book of Kells

Both Donncha MacGabhann and Victoria Thompson Whitworth are discovering and explaining fresh insights into the Book of Kells after uncounted previous books and articles have been presented by others over the past 200 years. Both of these authors leave us with the expectation that there is still much more to be learned. This 1,200 year old incomplete copy of the Four Gospels has been studied, admired, copied, and inspired new generations of artists and designers, including myself. The scholarly, creative, and spiritual energy surrounding this marvel, after all these years, fills me with optimism that the best is yet to come.