Editing Animal style (section)

==Germanic animal style==
{{see also|Migration Period art|Anglo-Saxon art|Viking art}}
The study of [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by [[Bernhard Salin]]<ref>[[:sv:Bernhard Salin|Biography on swedish Wikipedia]]</ref> in a work published in 1904.<ref>''Die altgermanische Thierornamentik'', Stockholm 1904, [https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4889930W/Die_altgermanische_Thierornamentik The Open Library online text], written in German and heavily illustrated.</ref> Salin classified animal art from roughly 400 to 900 AD into three phases. The origins of these different phases remain the subject of debate; developing trends in late-Roman popular provincial art was an element, as were earlier traditions of the nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples. Styles I and II are found widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples during the [[Migration Period]].

'''Style I'''. First appearing in northwest Europe, first expressed with the introduction of the [[chip carving]] technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.<ref>[https://blog.britishmuseum.org/decoding-anglo-saxon-art/ "Decoding Anglo-Saxon art", Rosie Weetch and Illustrator Craig Williams, [[British Museum]] blog, 28 May 2014</ref>

'''Style II'''. After about 560–570 Style I, declining, began to be supplanted. The animals of Style II are whole beasts, their bodies elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism—rarely with legs—tending to be described as serpents, though heads often have characteristics of other animals. The animals become subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically [[interlace (art)|interlace]]. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid ([[:Image:Sutton.Hoo.PurseLid.RobRoy.jpg|picture]]) from [[Sutton Hoo]] (c. 625). Eventually about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=yZVeZnUXMiAC&dq=Salin+animal+style&pg=PA43 Rituals of power: from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages],  By Frans Theuws, Janet L. Nelson, p. 45</ref> 

Salin '''Style III''' is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called [[Viking art]].  Interlace, where it occurs, becomes less regular and more complex, and if not three-dimensional animals are usually seen in profile but twisted, exaggerated, surreal, with fragmented body parts filling every available space, creating an intense detailed energetic feel. Animals' bodies become hard for the unpractised viewer to read, and there is a very common motif of the "gripping beast" where an animal's mouth grips onto another element of the composition to connect two parts. Animal style was one component, along with [[Celtic art]] and late classical elements, in the formation of style of [[Insular art]] and [[Anglo-Saxon art]] in the British Isles, and through these routes and others on the Continent, left a considerable legacy in later Medieval art.

Other names are sometimes used: in [[Anglo-Saxon art]] Kendrick preferred "Helmet" and "Ribbon" for Styles I and II.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3cU4kkROdekC&dq=Salin+animal+style&pg=PA322 Hills]</ref>

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Image:Sutton.Hoo.PurseLid.RobRoy.jpg|[[Sutton Hoo purse-lid]], 7th century, with Style II animals. British&nbsp;Museum:{{British-Museum-db|1939,1010.2.a-l|id=87215}}
File:Fragments from a helmet (Staffordshire Hoard).jpg|Cheek piece from a helm from the 7th to 8th century [[Staffordshire Hoard]] 
File:Vogel-broa.gif|Analysis of a bird from Broa, after whose finds the "Broa" style, a phase of Salin's Style III, is named.
</gallery>