VIKING ART

Viking art did not aim to portray reality but to tangle it: stylized animals, interlaced ribbons and spirals cover brooches, rune stones, ships and church portals. Historians distinguish six successive styles, named after their most famous finds, which let almost any Norse object be dated at a glance.

The journey starts with Oseberg (775-875), of gripping-beast predators from the famous Norwegian ship; continues with Borre (850-950), of animals gripping one another in tense symmetry; and Jellinge (900-975), with its characteristic S-shaped ribbons from King Harald Bluetooth's stones. Then come Mammen (960-1020), from a great Danish ceremonial axe with plant motifs and a spiral-feathered bird; Ringerike (1000-1075), of elegant tendrils and entwined lions on English and Norwegian stone carvings; and Urnes (1050-1150), of elongated greyhounds biting amid fine lines, immortalized on the portal of Urnes stave church, a World Heritage site.

Beyond beauty, art was identity: a Borre-style brooch told where you came from as clearly as an accent. And it was not elite decoration only: humble combs, spoons and chests carry the same interlace, because in the Viking world even everyday things deserved to be beautiful.