This
is a large Celtic "Carpet Page" design,
like the many full page, decorative pages in medieval
illuminated manuscripts such as the Books of Kells,
Lindisfarne, and Durrow; but of course the main motif
is not a traditional Celtic one. It's an ornate emblem
of piracy, like you'd find on a sort of pirate flag
that, of course, you'd never actually find anywhere
or anywhen.
This
print is a 300 dpi printed copy of my digital painting.
It's 18 by 24 inches in size.
In
sober fact, none of the branches of the Celtic tree
were famous for seafaring. The closest we'd come historically
would be the Venetii tribe, on the coast of Gaul -
what's still a Celtic territory today, though we now
call it Brittany - and the Venetii probably almost
always stayed in sight of land. Semihistorically,
or maybe in the land of legend, there's also the Welsh
prince Madoc and Ireland's Saint Brendan, who each
embarked on an imram, or journey-adventure,
to the far west.
But
on the other hand the Irish, at least, were no strangers
to the Caribbean in buccaneer days, if only because
Oliver Cromwell had sold so many of them into slavery
there. So pardon me for mixing up my Pirates of the
Caribbean and my Celtic Art. The fact is, I just really
liked the idea.
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