The Use of Coherent Geometry in the Design of Pictish Stone Sculpture

Bibliographic Data

ID19216923
AuthorsThomas Keyes, Daniel R Hansen
Year2026
Volume70
Issue1
Pages127-171
Publication date2026-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedieval Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0076-6097 • E-ISSN: 1745-817X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00766097.2026.2650078
OpenAlexW7161970434
LanguageEN
References cited15

SO-CALLED ‘PICTISH SYMBOL STONES’ are often set apart from other artistic and epigraphic traditions of northern Europe on the basis of their unique iconography; while Pictish monuments often share stylistic features with artefacts and illuminated manuscripts found elsewhere in Britain, these similarities have often been attributed to a peripheral Pictish imitation of core Insular art styles and motifs. This paper challenges this purported peripherality by demonstrating that Pictish art shares fundamental underlying principles of design with the rest of the Insular tradition, even when deployed to produce iconography particular to Pictland. We take up the ideas and method of Robert Stevick, whose body of work demonstrates that the design of much Insular art relies on the iteration of ratios, using compass and straightedge techniques to produce what he terms a ‘coherent geometry’. We extend Stevick’s analysis to Pictish sculpture, demonstrating the geometric coherence of four geographically dispersed and typologically distinct monuments. Our findings suggest that the Picts activity employed Insular techniques for the creation of novel and innovative works of art

Feature (linguistics) · Motion (physics) · Sculpture · Architecture and Art History Studies · Architecture and Computational Design · Structural Analysis of Composite Materials

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