Visit to the Book of Kells

In later years, such as the time of the Book of Kells, Celtic artists elevated the humble red dot into a high art form, creating complex webs of delicate knotwork and even animal interlace.

The red dots are also used in the instance a scribe may have made an error in his text. The monks who labored daily over their writing tables, endlessly copying out page after page of text, much of which they had to translate, often grew fatigued and made errors. Just as modern calligraphers do, the scribes occasionally repeated a word or line or made a spelling mistake. In the Book of Kells there are numerous places where red ink made later corrections to the Latin text by enclosing a word to be ignored in red dots.

Chi Rho

Now and then, throughout this great work, the artists suddenly erupt from pages of pure text and treat the reader to full pages of illumination. In these splendid illuminated pages, the artist takes over with his mixture of invention and discipline. Such depictions include portraits of the evangelists, such figural scenes as the Virgin with her Child, the Arrest of Christ and his Temptation, and the lovely Chi Rho page.

The Chi Rho page is probably the best known of all the pages of Kells. It gets it name from the shortened Greek form of the name of Christ - XPI - and introduces St Matthew's account of the nativity. The three letters form the main image and just two words appear on the page - "autem" meaning now, and "generatio" meaning the birth. Detail is piled upon detail: an otter with a fish, a peacock and two mice tugging at a eucharistic host while a pair of cats with mice on their backs look on. The viewer is left to marvel at how the unaided eye and the unsupported hand could develop such intricate designs.

The Book of Kells

The work has been separated and re- bound into four volumes. Two volumes are shown simultaneously in the darkened inner room, one opened to display a full page of artwork, and a second one opened to show two pages of text. The shown pages change every day.

The work is unforgettable in its exuberant beauty. If you get to Dublin, don't miss it.

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