Migration Period art

Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 800). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.

In the 3rd century CE the Roman Empire almost collapsed and the make-up of its army became increasingly Germanic. In the 4th century when the Huns pushed various Germanic tribes westward, some Germanic groups spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then in Hispania (Spain), in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain, while the Ostrogoths established themselves in Italy. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire had been almost completely replaced with smaller, less politically-organized, but vigorous Germanic kingdoms.

Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. The new arrivals settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence has detected no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse-harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment and portable. Before conversion to Christianity, artworks were buried with their owners. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.

Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style, possibly also of eastern origins, flourished in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally, Insular art, or the Hiberno-Saxon style, in a brief but prosperous period after Christianization, saw the fusion of animal style with Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.

During the 2nd century CE the Goths in the area of present-day Ukraine discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style, borrowed from Scythians and Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt-buckle (picture) from Ukraine.

Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well-known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at a museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of the Frankish king Childeric I (died c. 481) in Tournai (in present-day Belgium), well north of the Alps.

The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.

Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style 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.