Beiträge zu den Beziehungen zwischen Münzprägung und Kunst I. Die keltische Münzprägung

The article is analysing the relations between coin and art, especially for such periods of the history of coinage, which are lying beyond the flowering epochs approbated and appreciated by the history of art (the Antique, the Renaissance), and in which we often meet coins entirely low in art or quality beside works of great art in other provinces of art. The causes are lying in the special character of the coin as an object of fixed purpose and as money. Choosing the images for coins, juridical and especially economic points of view are taken in consideration before the artistic point of view. By the example of the Celtic coinage B.C. and its imitation of Greek types, it is demonstrated that the Celts, in their art during the La Tène-Time, are working much independent of their Greek models and are transforming them, in consequence of their own feeling for style, to such coins as may, however, for a good deal pretend to be artistic work. This is changing with the circulation of the Roman coin as world coin. The influence of this change on the coinage of the Germanic realms during the great migration of people will be demonstrated in a forthcoming article.