Viking art
Viking art is the decorative art of Viking Age Scandinavia, expressed on objects and monuments through animal forms, interlacing, and regional styles.
Urnes style: A late Viking Age style marked by slender, intertwined animals and fine, looping contours. Its elegant animal interlace is among the tradition’s most recognizable late forms.
Oseberg ship: A richly carved Viking ship buried in Norway around the early ninth century. Its wood carvings preserve an exceptional early display of Viking Age ornament.
Wood carving: The shaping of wood by cutting, scraping, or chiseling to create forms and decoration. Carving made large, interlaced designs possible on ships, wagons, and household objects.
Viking Age: The period of Scandinavian expansion and activity conventionally dated from the late eighth to the eleventh century. Its chronology frames the changing styles and objects grouped as Viking art.
Norse art: The visual arts of Norse-speaking peoples across Scandinavia and the North Atlantic in the medieval period. Viking art forms an influential early phase of this broader artistic tradition.
Mammen style: A Viking Age decorative style featuring large, often plant-like animals and elaborate interlace. Its dense animal and vegetal ornament shows a distinctive shift in motif and composition.
Jelling stones: Two Danish runestones associated with the tenth-century kings Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth. The larger stone combines a runic inscription with an animal figure and interlace.
Metalworking: The shaping and joining of metals to make tools, weapons, fittings, and ornaments. Metalworkers adapted small-scale animal ornament to brooches, mounts, and other portable objects.
Scandinavia: The northern European region comprising Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The tradition’s workshops and principal centers developed across this region.
Scandinavian design: A modern design tradition associated with Scandinavian countries, often emphasizing function, craft, and restrained forms. Modern design sometimes reinterprets Viking ornament as a source of regional visual identity.