Customer Reviews

The Art of the Picts: Sculpture and Metalwork in Early Medieval Scotland

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HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION. A fine presentation of Pictish studies from an art-history perspective. It includes a superb collection of 300 b/w photographs of Pictish jewelry and sculpture. Extensively footnoted and thoughtfully argued, it's a great resource. Some crucial monuments are depicted without the glass enclosures that now obstruct them. It's a great asset to have these clear images.

If you're new to Pictish studies, many of the references and concepts may not be meaningful -- but the photos alone are worth the cost of the book.

Quibbles: (1) The photographs aren't individually credited, (2) None of the photos are in color, and (3) The stated locations of some monuments don't identify their current placements. (I'm writing this within a few months of publication, so it's not that they've moved since then.)

But don't pass up this book for these paltry reasons. I plan to lose myself in it for quite some time.

The book is well illustrated, yet the text is constantly cross referring to other items, some of which are in the book, pages away, and some of which are not in the book at all. This can be frustrating when you would like to do the comparisons to understand the point the author is making. Also, please be forewarned that this is written from an art history perspective, not so much from an historical or archaeological perspective. To me, the book would have benefitted from text which blended these disciplines a little better. Perhaps the authors presupposed that readers would already be familiar with the other disciplines, and therefore just concentrated on art history. Still, if you love Pictish art, this book is probably a a must-have.