The making of Muiredach’s cross was a colossal undertaking. This activity, perhaps not surprisingly, was seen as an act of derision even so, it is hard to discern what beard-pulling contributed to the spiritual meaning of a Christian monument. Meanwhile at the foot of the cross, two men are seen pulling each other’s beards.
A demon can be spotted chasing souls into hell with a three-pronged fork, while a second demon with spindly legs gives the damned a vigorous kick.
This comes to the fore in his carving of the Last Judgment at Monasterboice. There is plenty of ingenuity in the way that the Muiredach master handled established Christian themes, revealing a taste for humour and anecdotal detail. It is sometimes assumed that medieval artists showed little interest in creativity or innovation, a view that has been widely refuted in recent years. Muiredach’s cross at Monasterboice: The body of the cross was cut from a huge block of quartzy sandstone which, when extracted from the quarry, must have weighed close to 10 tons. It is not often in medieval art that we can follow the work of an individual sculptor in this way. The sculptor’s style is instantly recognisable and can be identified in five or six other crosses, notably at Kells, Clonmacnoise and Durrow (Offaly).
#Medieval operation panel full#
His approach was remarkably naturalistic, the figures roundly modelled and the scenes full of attractive details – swords, drinking horns and ornate brooches. As so often in the middle ages, the sculptor’s name remains unknown, but it seems appropriate to describe him as the “Muiredach master”. This is especially so with a group of monuments carved by the hand of a single sculptor, whose work includes the great cross at Monasterboice, erected, as an inscription explains, on the instructions of abbot Muiredach in the years before 924 AD. Little thought has been given to the craftsmen who made them or to the people who commissioned them. While the meaning of the scenes depicted on the crosses have prompted intense debate, the carvings themselves have rarely been considered as works of art. The high crosses of Ireland, especially those adorned with figure sculpture, are such familiar features of our historic landscape that it is easy to take them for granted.