Fierce face!

The germanic art is my main inspiration and the area i am most used to work in. One particular motive seems to be attractive to me very strongly and thats the reason i wanted to look more into it. Its the wildman face, the fierce face or mask. I am not sure how it started, maybe as an inspiration from roman coins and medals germanic wariors were seeing in contact and service of Roman army. Sure thing is that you can see those en face portraits early on in oldest germanc styles. What interests me the most is the merging of the face to fit the environment and style of the entire piece. Bellow you can see the head plate of bow brooch in Nydam style. The head between those two beasts is very reminiscent of roman heads but you can also see how later Style I saucer and button brooches developed from that.

Nydam brooch, gilded silver. photo by Lukasz Dziubalski

Next one is the example of fully developed Style II art on Ultuna boat burial spatha scabbard. While the Sytle II is very international one and spreads over the germanic dominated Europe, incorporating en face masks seems to be very scandinavian fashion. Note how moustache grows to be body of two headed serpent

Ultuna scabbard detail. photo Lindsey Kerr

 The Oseberg burial contained also a cart with human heads carved in contemporary art style. More realistic, but still bearing trance like expression and formal traits like spherical eyes and open mouth.

Wooden cart post, Oseberg burial. photo by Lukasz Dziubalski

Norwegian strap end in bronze shows a fierce face in late Borre style. Note that the basic features are the same, big, circle like eyes, connected brows and the ribbon like moustache.

Bronze buckle in Oslo museum. photo by Lukasz Dziubalski

 Fully developed ringerike mask motive as carved in the antler walking stick terminal (?). Even when the execution is very formalised and the style is very baroque, you can still see the Ultuna face in there.

Antler walking stick head. photo by Lukasz Dziubalski

 Smaller version of face incorporated to a bronze buckle from gotland, easier to see common traits in here.

Bronze gotlandic buckle. photo by Lukasz Dziubalski

 Finaly i attach some of my work utilising the motive. I hope you find the longevity of the motive fascinating and inspiring.

silver inlayed axe head inspired by Bamberg casket mounts

The guard of this sword is replica of the find from swedish  Sigtuna. executed in moose antler.

Ringerike style mask ispired by the above mentioned walking stick

Transitional Mammen - Ringerike style knife handle of my own design.