Pictish Arts Society to hear talk on key pattern in insular art

The fourth lecture of the 2017-18 season of the Pictish Arts Society, and the first in 2018, will be held on Friday March 16 in association with Angus Alive Museums and Galleries.

The venue is the upstairs gallery of Brechin Museum in High Street, with the lecture, ‘Making Key Pattern in Insular Art’, given by Cynthia Thickpenny.

Abstract ornament, such as interlace and key pattern, dominated much of the insular art of Britain and Ireland between 600AD and 1100AD.

The Picts in particular often carved large, visually prominent and very complex compositions of key pattern on their stone sculpture.

However, previous studies of key pattern have fundamental problems that have limited our understanding of this complicated design.

As a result, past scholars have misunderstood key pattern’s physical structure, and thereby overlooked evidence of medieval artists’ working processes.

In this talk, Cynthia Thickpenny will present a new theoretical approach to analysing key pattern, which not only reveals a more correct understanding of its physical structure but also identifies insular artists’ own conceptions of this pattern.

Cynthia will demonstrate the benefits of her approach by discussing a variety of insular artworks decorated with key pattern, including a Pictish stone panel held in Groam House Museum in Rosemarkie.

Doors open at Brechin Museum at 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available after the talks which are free to members and £3 to non-members.