Celtic Mythology

Since the advent of Riverdance, there has been an explosion of interest in all things Irish, from Irish culture and art, morphing into the worlds of Celtic mythology. Suddenly all things Celtic are cool and this is reflected in the art world, which always seems to be an astute barometer of where the money is. Irelands new found economic wealth was even paraded under the once noble heading of the ‘Celtic tiger’, which has since become a parody of itself since the implosion of the domestic banking system. But we grin and smile on while the slow moving train of what is commonly known as art sales grinds to a painful stop somewhere deep in the wilderness between the civilizations of what is real and what we hoped was real.

Does this new reality mean that all that energy reacquainting ourselves with our Celtic heritage was just a waste of time? It’s not a rhetorical question, but I would like the answer to still be a resounding no. It’s always good to connect with the past at various intervals on your journey, both as a collective and as an individual. If it teaches us nothing else, it at least reminds us about the constancy of change, and how the pictures of how we view ourselves evolve. As artists, we try to capture some part of the essence of this journey and present it to ourselves and eventually to others. Sometimes we have something important to say, but most times, just the act of creating and sharing is the important act.

Celtic art is similar and reflects the people it was born out of. Typically, Celtic art is ornamental, avoiding straight lines and only occasionally using symmetry, without the imitation of nature central to the classical tradition, often involving complex symbolism. Celtic art has used a variety of styles and has shown influences from other cultures in their knot work, spirals, key patterns, lettering, zoomorphic, plant forms and human figures.

As a people, the ancient Celts rarely traveled in straight line. At its apex, the Celtic world covered most of western Europe, though it was not politically unified, as a result there was a great variation in local practices, the oldest body of myths is found in from the early medieval period of Ireland.

So how do we explain the rise in popularity of Celtic culture? Certain aspects of Celtic mythology appeal greatly to a wider audience more now than ever before, particularly a need for a place to call home, to turn to and know where one’s roots and origin lie, and also most importantly to feel that one belongs to a tribe or a group of people that have a similar history and story. The problem is that people are now more inclined to trawl through their computers for a sense of belonging and connectedness than to turn to their flesh and blood neighbor in the apartment building they live in, and take those messy first steps to establishing some form of first contact.

In a similar fashion, what has all this to do with art and painting I hear you say as you reach for the mouse pad. All art, all painting and culture have to do with establishing connections, with reaching out. Irish culture, Irish mythology, and its Celtic cousin mythologies and stories are not just anchored in the past. The important thing they teach us is that all these stories are constantly evolving. We digest the past and use it to energize the present and how we interact with each other. If one thing the Irish Diaspora story should teach us, is the need to accept the stranger into our midst, something we need to do in Ireland today like never before, and accept newness and perceived difference and allow it to feed it into our culture and breathe new life into it. The alternative is just to stare at it, studying it in its old format through a cracked monitor screen, until is shrivels up and dies in front of our eyes due to lack of real relevance.