Art, and the talk about art, reflect the culture that produces it. This was as true for the Carolingians as it is for us today.
This particular post won’t be going into all the arguments about the relative merits of the Hiberno-Anglo school of manuscript production compared to the Carolingian court school. That is for a later day. This post will be a simple summary of the types of art produced in the 8th century, and a few words about them.
First of all, as with all things early medieval, there is not a lot to work with. Most anything made of wood or cloth has not survived, which means we are missing out on those items which are cheapest and most easy to produce. Anything easy to produce would probably have reflected views not always sanctioned by the abbots, counts, and kings of the day. Thus the art we have reflects an elite or official view of the world, but it is what we have.