Nordic Tattoo Studio in Schweden & Deutschland

Urnes Style inspired Nordic Tattoo with the godess Skadi as a symbol. All handpoked and freehand drawn on the skin. … more

Urnes Style inspired Nordic Tattoo with the godess Skadi as a symbol. All handpoked and freehand drawn on the skin. The Urnes style is an art style from the late Viking age, used around c. 1050–1125 AD.

The name of the style comes from the ornamentation on the portal of the Urnes stave church you see below in Vestland County, Norway, and was coined by the Norwegian archaeologist Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955) in 1909.

The Urnes style is the last phase of Viking art. The style is a refinement of the Ringerike style and depends upon interplay of gracefully curving lines for its effect.

The animals are still curvaceous and one or more snakes are included with the quadrupeds. The spiral hip is still used, but it is not as large as in the Mammen and Ringerike styles. The animals have large almond-shaped eyes and often bite one another.

The Urnes style was also often used on runic stones, when the runic inscription was carried within the body of the animal. A good example from Lingsberg, Uppland, Sweden, has a Christian cross and two Urnes style animals which carry the runic inscription.

A handpoked tattoo sleeve done in several sessions.

Urnes Stav Church. Image: WikiArt

This tattoo was inspired by the Ringerike Style wind velvet in gold-plated bronze you see on the last slide. This … more

This tattoo was inspired by the Ringerike Style wind velvet in gold-plated bronze you see on the last slide. This find from the Viking Age 750 – 1100 AD is exhibited @historiska in Stockholm.

The Söderala vane (Swedish: Söderalaflöjeln) is a weather vane dating from the Viking Age, richly ornamented and made of gilt bronze. It derives its name from Söderala Church in Söderala, Sweden, where it was used as a weather vane during the 18th century. It was most probably originally used as a vane on a Viking ship, and shows signs of wear. On stylistic grounds, it has been dated to c. 1050. It is today part of the collections of the Swedish History Museum. A copy of the vane is in Söderala.

The Söderala vane consists of a triangular plate, made of gilt bronze and reinforced by smaller bronze plates and rivets in some places. A small sculpture of an animal, kept separately from the vane when it was bought by the museum, was originally attached to the top end of the bronze plate. The curved edge of the plate is pierced by several small holes, in which some kind of loosely hanging decorations may once have been attached. The plate itself is decorated with depictions of three beasts, interlaced with each other and with other purely decorative elements such as spirals, in a style closely related to that of Swedish burial monuments from the middle of the 11th century. The main decorative element is a depiction of a Norse dragon with wings, its forelegs and neck stretched somewhat like a horse about to rise. Its back is comparatively small. The dragon is very similar to a dragon depicted on a tombstone from the mid-11th century from Sundby Church in Södermanland, Sweden. Another creature lies coiled around the forelegs of the dragon, while the third, legless, is wrapped around the body of the dragon.

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