The Mission : Recreating a singular page of the Book of Kells in a modern light
The Book of Kells, one of Ireland’s proudest cultural relics, boasts some of the most elaborate illustrations ever attempted in a large quantity. More so, these illustrations required intensive labor by their creators and would have been exhaustively time consuming and eye straining work which also suggests the relic was a ceremonial object. I believe that the time invested in this work of art is under appreciated and undervalued globally and therefore for my final project I have reworked a single page of the Book of Kells digitally using Adobe Draw on an iPad with a stylus in order to attempt to better understand this process. I argue that the time devoted in this feat of craftsmanship and human will should be praised as one of the most incredible artworks to ever have been constructed. While my technological advantage is considerable (however not that time diminishing), I will be working pixel to pixel and keeping tabs of the total time invested in this work. The Book of Kells is predicated to be created around 563 by a monastery founded by an Irish holy man named St. Columba off the coast of Scotland. The pages themselves are made from calf skin and are very durable which allowed the book to remain in such marvelous condition.
Meet the Artists!
Holt Robison
Art Qualification: B (generous)
- Environmental Studies Major, Architecture minor
- Can only draw buildings; master of crayon
- Eyes twitch when looking at screens for too long
- Wielding an Ipad and stylus
- Time invested into artwork ~15 hours
The Process
For my Final Project, I chose a popular image of Christ Enthroned from the Book of Kells and used my artistic ability to reproduce with a modern twist. In doing so, I outlined every detail visible within the image and then proceeded to color it in piece by piece. This process, I felt, best emulated, the pain-staking process that the monasteries of Columba endured in order to produce 500 of these images. I tracked my progress and worked in 3 hour intervals. I was shocked by the amount of time this project necessitated but shocked further by how relaxing the process was. I found this process to be incredibly spiritual and developed a greater appreciation for the illustrators of such a time-demanding project. By comparing myself with the the advantages of modern technology to the illustrators of the Book of Kells, I hope to express how incredible a feat this creation truly is.
The Results are in! (slide to view each)
Hi my name is Holt Robison and I am (now) a rising junior studying Environmental Studies with a minor in architecture. One of my passions is creating artwork, more specifically digitally, so I found this project to be very exciting! I chose the Book of Kells because of how elaborate in nature the detailing is and how straining it must have been to create such fine detail.
