A SHORT HISTORY OF MOSAICS

By Alexandria

Mosaic is an art. You have to make it speak to or raise emotions in people. Otherwise it is not art. Its just colorful pieces of glass and stone on the wall or floor.

It has been called the Eternal Art Form.

The Art of Mosaic, in one form or another, has been practiced for thousands of years. In its earliest application, the use of mosaics was found in use as ancient pebble floor coverings and as embellishments to buildings in Sumaria where tiles were pushed into clay walls to strengthen and adorn them. But mosaic as we know it was invented by the Greeks, who then passed their skills on to the Romans. Many ancient mosaics have survived the ravages of time remarkably well.

In the main, however, mosaic as an art form covered two principal periods in history: First, the Graeco-Roman period, from Alexander the Great to the fall of Rome during which examples like "The Battle of Isus" (2nd century BC) depicting the famous battle of Alexander against Darius were created. Or, later, the classic 'black and white' mosaics such as Pompeii’s Cave Canem and the polychromatics made under Hadrian’s reign.

Alexander the Great Mosaic

Second, the Paleo-Christian and Byzantine period extending from the fall of the Roman Empire around 4th century AD to the gradual decline of mosaic in the 12th and 13th centuries, during which time polychromatic mosaics and wall and vault glass and gold mosaics reached a pinnacle of excellence.

One thing is certain, however, mosaics reached their height of widespread appreciation during the Roman period when there was not a house in Rome whose inner hall was not covered by mosaic where when the rain fell it both cleaned and enlivened the natural stone colors.

 

In Egypt and Mesopotamia, furniture, small architectural features, and jewelry were occasionally adorned with inset bits of enamel, glass, and colored stone. Early Greek mosaics (5th-4th century b.c.) uncovered at Olynthus were worked in small natural pebbles. The use of cut cubes or tesserae was introduced from the East after the Alexandrian conquest. Roman floor mosaics were based upon Greek examples, and glass mosaics applied to columns, niches, and fountains can be seen at Pompeii. In Italy and the Roman colonies the floor patterns were produced both by large slabs of marble in contrasting colors (opus sectile) and by small marble tesserae (opus tessellatum). The tesserae designs varied from simple geometrical patterns in black and white to huge pictorial arrangements of figures, plants and animals.

Upper-class Romans had an appetite for sumptuous interior decoration. The floors and walls of sprawling private villas, courtyards, and fancy shops were often richly decorated with scenes depicting gods and goddesses, domestic life, exotic beasts, street entertainers, and landscapes. Affluent patrons commissioned frescoes, or Greek-influenced paintings daubed onto wet plaster walls to form a unique, time-resistant effect. Structures were sometimes embellished with trompe d'oeil doors, columns, and still lifes to give the illusion of increased space. It was also popular to hire craftsmen to fashion wall and floor mosaics, or paintings created with thousands of finely shaded tesserae cemented with mortar.

The floors of Roman buildings were often richly decorated with mosaics, many capturing scenes of history and everyday life. Some mosaics were bought 'off the shelf' as a standard design, while the wealthy villa owners could afford more personalised designs.

A typical Roman Villa with Mosaics on the floor and walls

To create their mosaics, Roman artists employed durable multicolored stone and marble pieces as well as cubes (called tesserae) of more fragile materials, such as brick or terracotta, semiprecious gems, and opaque colored glass to create their wall mosaics. They also made gold and silver cubes by sandwiching foil between layers of translucent glass. Tesserae were produced in many sizes, with the tiniest being used to model faces.

To create a mosaic, the artist first covered a wall with one or more layers of plaster. A final layer of mortar was mixed with crushed pottery, called a setting bed, and often guidelines were painted on it. Finally the artist pressed the mosaic cubes into the setting bed, embedding them at different angles to create a glittering effect when light struck them. Depending on the size of the tesserae used, a mosaicist could perhaps cover up to four meters (about fifteen feet) of wall a day with mosaics.

Next Edition - A Day in the Life of a Mosaic Artist