page_title: Viking art
section_title: Urnes Style
hierarchical_section_title: Viking art / Styles / Urnes Style
caption_attribution_description: Dansk: Bronzespænde fra Vikingetiden (ca. 1000-tallet). Nationalmuseet, København Deutsch: Bronzespange aus dem 11. Jahrhundert. Dänischer Nationalmuseum, Kopenhagen.
context_page_description: Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries CE. Viking art has many design elements in common with Celtic, Germanic, the later Romanesque and Eastern European art, sharing many influences with each of these traditions.
  Generally speaking, the current knowledge of Viking art relies heavily upon more durable objects of metal and stone; wood, bone, ivory and textiles are more rarely preserved; human skin, which historical sources indicate was often elaborately tattooed, is nowhere extant and is unlikely to have survived. The artistic record therefore, as it has survived to the present day, remains significantly incomplete. Ongoing archaeological excavation and opportunistic finds, of course, may improve this situation in the future, as indeed they have in the recent past.
  Viking art is usually divided into a sequence of roughly chronological styles, although outside Scandinavia itself local influences are often strong, and the development of styles can be less clear.
context_section_description: The Urnes Style was the last phase of Scandinavian animal art during the second half of the 11th century and in the early 12th century. The Urnes Style is named after the northern gate of the Urnes stave church in Norway, but most objects in the style are runestones in Uppland, Sweden, which is why some scholars prefer to call it the Runestone style.
  The style is characterized by slim and stylised animals that are interwoven into tight patterns. The animals heads are seen in profile, they have slender almond-shaped eyes and there are upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks.
caption: Bronze ornament from Denmark.
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