MOSAICS an Ancient Craft

Cue (NZERS), Issue 37, 15 December 1945, Page 22

MOSAICS an Ancient Craft

AMONG ' Italy’s, many branchesof'art, ■S* mosaics will always retain a high place. For sheer decorative beauty this ancient technique is unexcelled, and one has but to wander through any Italian cathedral, church or palace to realise the amount of painstaking labour involved, and the artistic genius possessed by those mosaicists of old.

Although the Italians have been largely responsible for the growth of mosaic-work, it is believed to have been first used by the early Egyptians, who decorated wooden carvings by inserting into them small pieces of coloured glass. They also had a grasp of its larger possibilities, as excavations have revealed columns and walls showing mosaic in its infancy, pieces of brightlycoloured stone and glass having been merged with the surrounding material to form flowers and similar ornaments. Discoveries in Mesopotamia prove that as early as 3500 B. C. the next step in mosaic design had been taken, that of cementing the pieces of stone and glass to a base. The Egyptians of the later empire apparently abandoned the use of mosaic except for jewellery, but in this they developed amazing skill in working with glass mosaic, a technique which is now practised extensively in Italy.

The Greeks also displayed ability in mosaic art, and it is thought that many of the fine floor and pictorial mosaics dating from the second century B. C.—such as the famous Battle of Issus, with its representation of Alexander the Great—are the work of

Greek artists. In these early days mosaic-work was commonly used as a floor-covering, and various types can be traced in the hundreds of Roman floor mosaics preserved not only in Italy, but in Syria, France, Germany and England. The simplest and apparently the most popular style consisted of an all-over pattern, usually of two colours. The tesserae (blocks used in mosaic-work) were put in at random, the general effect being similar to our terrazzo of today. The second type was made up of a simple floor centre surrounded by a decorated border. A third class comprised floors where the entire surface was elaborately decorated by means of geometric patterns, and it is to this style that the finest floor mosaics belong. Still another type of floor treatment was the large-scale marble mosaic. In this, large slabs of coloured marble were used to form an all-over pattern, the most famous example —still in use after 1800 years—being the floor of the Pantheon, in Rome, whose alternating squares and circles have been the inspiration for numerous marble floors of modern days.

Mosaics, chiefly of glass, were also used on the walls and vaults in monumental buildings of the Roman empire, and instances have been provided—notably in Pompeii—of more informal uses for mosaic work, such as mosaic columns in gardens and fountain recesses.

During the 6th century mosaic technique was at its best. The use of gold tesserae, made by compressing gold leaf between two layers of glass, became

increasingly common, and gave the mosaic—especially the pictorial type—a particularly pleasing effect. The skill of mosaicists during this period has never been surpassed, and a few of the finest examples of their work can be seen in the churches of S. Apollinare Nuovo and S. Vitale, at Ravenna.

Mosaic-workers in Constantinople also developed a style of mosaic in many ways as striking as that in Italy, and in Constantinople itself great areas of mosaics still remain in churches converted into mosques. Mohammedan architecture of India developed great skill in an elaborate marble mosaic, in which intricate patterns were formed in cut marble, colour being provided by the use of precious stones and coloured marble. Another Mohammedan technique is the wood-mosaic, which is occasionally employed in Italy, usually for wall panels. Notable examples of this are to be found at Assisi, and in the church of S. Pietro Casinensi at Perugia, although possibly this could be regarded as inlaid work rather than mosaic.

With the arrival of the Renaissance during the 14th—16th centuries, mosaic art almost completely disappeared, and where used as a decoration it was merely an attempt to imitate painting as in the entrance to St. Mark’s at Venice. Only in Venice, and then merely in the form of jewellery and similar small work, did the art continue, and in this technique it has persisted down to modern times. Not until the 19th century was mosaic art revived as mural decoration, and much of the work of this period is of Venetian origin. The mosaics of the central hall of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster and some of the mosaics at Westminster Abbey are typical. Compared with the sth and 6th century mosaics they show one common fault, a surface polished smooth, tesserae so close together that joints between them become almost invisible, and design which neglects the material and aims chiefly at pictorial effect. Even with the more successful mosaics in the American

church at Rome, the surface is too smooth to bring out the maximum decorative result. In making the best modern mosaics two general methods are employed. In one, the tesserae are fixed in place by hand on the wall, allowing the light on each piece to be studied, and this is possibly the better system. The more

general technique is to prepare an outline drawing on paper which is the reverse of the sketch for the design. Upon this the tesserae are glued into place, and the paper cut into pieces small enough for easy handling. The wall to be decorated has meanwhile been brought to a perfect surface with special cement. Fresh cement is applied to the surface, and into it are pressed the tesserae, their faces still glued to the original drawing. When the cement has become sufficiently dry the paper is torn off, the joints painted with cement to allow them to be part of the design, and the whole mosaic cleaned. During the present century the possibilities, as well as the limitations, of

mosaic-work have come to be more thoroughly recognised and some mosaics, notably those of Sir T. G. Jackson, in England, show a true grasp of the essentials—the necessity of keeping surfaces rough and allowing the joints in the tesserae to count as part of the decorative effect, thus avoiding the imitation of paintings, an obvious fault in much of the later work.

New effects have been obtained in recent years by leaving the background entirely in cement, only the figure or pattern itself being in mosaic. Also, the use of tiled bathrooms and marble floors, essential conveniences in this modern life, are simply the development of an art which is one of the most ancient in the world, and which, unfortunately, is now almost a thing of the past.