Art of prehistory and early history: Germanic art; Oseberg style

The Oseberg style is the first of several overlapping art styles of the Viking Age; it became widespread throughout Scandinavia from about the end of the 8th century.

The name refers to an important site: In 1904, a ship burial was discovered on an estate in Oseberg on the Norwegian Oslo Fjord, from which Swedish and Norwegian archaeologists jointly unearthed the “Oseberg Ship”.

It took them two years to unearth the richly furnished Viking Age grave find (because they didn't actually unearth it, but rather free it by painting over it); the relatively well-preserved longship can now be seen in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway.

The Oseberg style was used to decorate everyday objects and jewelry made of wood and metal ; its defining motif is the grasping animal.

While this doesn't actually exist, his appearance has been well-prepared since the second half of the 5th century. At this time, the art of the post-Christian Germanic peoples, which had become rigidly cultic and religious, received strong inspiration from external influences: the spirit of late antique Roman art was still present in western Scandinavia , and the Celts were also slowly developing their own artistic ideas (which Asian steppe peoples like the Scythians and Sarmatians had already possessed and brought with them in every trade encounter).

From all this, a few Irish and Anglo-Saxon influences, and their own traditions, the Germanic peoples developed their animal styles. A wild and colorful collection of stylized animal figures, “anatomically refined” until the proportions perfectly matched the intertwined ornamentation.

Animal Style III (or Vendel E period, after a large field of boat graves found in Uppland, Sweden) was completed towards the end of the 7th century. Afterwards, the original animal forms were just dissolving into exuberant tendrils and sinuous entanglements when the wondrous raptor entered the scene and ushered in the development of the Oseberg style.

This grasping creature was an animal-like being of such adaptability that, according to the art historian himself, he has been unable to define it more precisely. This is not a failure, but rather presumably the very essence of the matter, or a logical consequence, if one assumes that the forms of the grasping creature were fluidly adapted to the respective requirements.

This mystical yet practical “animal for all occasions” likely takes its inspiration from the lion depictions in Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon art, which were spreading throughout Northern Europe from the Frankish Empire at that time. At least, that is the assumption of most researchers working in this field; other authors see the griffin's origins in the (English) illuminated manuscripts of the time, which frequently depicted squirrel-like animals.

This would discredit the proud, mystical creature of the century as a descendant of the first book illustrations à la cute, fast, cheap (today mostly sexy, fast, cheap), because the book illustrations of that time were teeming with rabbits and other cute little animals – that is probably also a bit short-sighted.

But even if the minority opinion were correct: one can very well imagine how the descendants of the proud early human predatory animal designers would react to the fact that their heraldic animal was supposedly based on a kind of “naked breast substitute”.

Back then, myths and further myths were stylized from every mystical image, and heraldic animals thus assumed almost state-supporting functions: Even in the coat of arms of “Sissi” , two griffins support the shield; the Dukes of Pomerania form the Griffin dynasty; in 1884, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III founded the Mecklenburg Griffin Order, an award in five classes… No chance; and there are of course many more myths surrounding the legendary “Griffin”, which would then seem somewhat ridiculous.

after a bronze-gilt bridle fitting with griffin motifs from a man’s grave near Broa/Gotland the Broa style , survived until the middle of the 9th century and was replaced by the Borre style.

After that, the Vikings developed several more styles, the Jelling style and the Mammen style, the Ringerike style and the Urnes style, until around 1100 AD the first advanced civilizations flourished in this part of the world.