Art of the Celts (review)

Reviews 149 the oral poet', such as quoted above, beg to be placed in some wider literary context in which 'poetic craft' is discussed. Rosemary Huisman Department of English University of Sydney Laing, Lloyd and Jennifer, Art of the Celts (World of art series), London, Thames & Hudson, 1992; paper; pp. 216; 212 illustrations, 22 in colour; R.R.P. AUS$22.95. This book has little to recommend it but its pictures. It is yet another text for the popular market by the well known team of Jennifer and Lloyd Laing, who over the years have writtten a series of syntheses about the 'Celtic' world, particularly in the British Isles. Their latest offering is a series of essays, inadequately referenced and full of inaccuracies. Vix is not on the Cote d'Azur (p. 32) but on the headwaters of the Seine. The M§eck6 Zehrovice head was found not in a sandpit (p. 76) but in a ritual 'grave'. The nose and mouth of the Euffigneix statue have not been damaged (p. 81). The mutilation is on the back and on one of the sides (see Cremin, The Celts in Europe [1992] pp. 84-5). The person kilting the bull on the base-plate of the Gundestrup cauldron is a woman, with well-defined breasts, not a man (p. 84). Conversely, there is no indication that the Rynkeby head is female (p. 85). The Monasterevin disc (p. 135) belongs to the category of 'Bann discs', described by Duval as thefinestproduct of insular La Tene art, but here ignored. Many other examples could be added. The most disappointing aspect of this book is that it was published in 1992 and claims to have taken account of the monumental The Celts, ed. by V. Kruta et al. (1991). Yet there is no indication that the authors have really used this work. Had they done so, they could not have made the errors listed above. Nor could they have excluded Iberia as egregiously as they have. What they appear to have done is to follow, in a pedestrian sort of a way, Ruth and Vincent Megaw's Celtic Art (1989). The tell-tale evidence of this is the reference to the site of Chamalieres as 'Sources de la Roche', a usage peculiartothe Megaws. The illustrations are very much deja trop vu and appear to be essentially the same as the Megaws'. One assumes that Thames & Hudson, who have produced both books, decided to double its return on an initial investment on illustrations. In that case it is a pity they did not ask the Megaws to condense their own magisterial text, which was intellectually challenging and a genuine contribution to the discipline. The Laings' work is a disappointing re-presentation of received ideas. The Laings have slightly enlarged the scope of the Megaws' book by including a very inadequate chapter on early medieval art, but without reference 150 Reviews to the superb Work of Angels edited by Susan Youngs (1989) and to the Commentary which accompanies the Faksimile-Verlag Book ofKells facsimile of 1990. They have also squeezed in a brief chapter on Celtic revivals in three sections, thefirstapparently original, the second leaning heavily on Stuart Piggott's Ancient Britons and the antiquarian imagination (1989), and the third practically a synopsis of Jeanne Sbeehey's The rediscovery of Ireland's past (1980). All in all, a disappointing book which has lovely pictures but contributes little to the field. AedeenCremin Centre for Celtic Studies University of Sydney Loades, David, The Tudor navy: an administrative, political and military history (Studies in naval history) Aldershot and Brookfield (Vermont), Scolar Press, 1992; cloth; pp. x, 317; 2 maps; R.R.P. £35.00. Over the past seventy years, the interest of historians in the history of the sea and seafaring in the sixteenth century has been focussed on trade, exploration, and settlement Interest in the institution of the Tudor navy has been peripheral. Loades's book is designed tofilla perceived gap in the availability of an up-todate general survey. Written, with one or two exceptions, from printed or secondary sources, it provides a chronological synthesis of naval activity in the century from a patriotic and Anglocentric...