Viking Beasts re-imagined: Mammen style, Ringerike style, and their continental relatives

PhD-candiate in Viking Age Archaeology and Art History, Rebeca Franco Valle, will talk about Viking Beasts re-imagined: Mammen style, Ringerike style, and their continental relatives.

Viking Age art has long been the subject of scholarly discussion. On the one hand, the unique nature of the artistic productions from the Viking Age has granted them their own category within European Art History. On the other, their stylistic developments and related imagery bear enthralling similarities with European art. These similarities are difficult to explain if the art is considered in isolation from the continent.

This presentation will examine several similarities and differences with a focus on the imagery of the Mammen and Ringerike styles. These styles developed in Scandinavia between 960 and 1040 and were accompanied by the appearance of new objects and iconographies.

During this presentation, Valle will demonstrate how style developments can be partially explained as the product of refashioning through artistic practice, and partially by iconographic adaptation and reinterpretation according to specific visions. To exemplify this, artistic models in manuscripts are brought up for discussion, arguing that some of the Mammen and Ringerike style images stem from the same iconographic models as those in contemporary manuscripts in Europe.

Tentatively, Valle will argue that, just like the medieval sibylline poems and the Völuspá find common grounds in end-of-the-world traditions of the continent mixed with vernacular myths, apocalyptic beasts found in manuscripts and Viking art beasts draw from common artistic sources.

Free entrance, and everyone is welcome!