A simple answer to the question, what is a mosaic

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In museums of ancient art, in some of the most ancient temples of Europe and Asia, as well as in the narrow streets of ancient cities that managed to preserve examples of monumental art of the distant past, you can find fragments of ornaments and other images of amazing beauty and attractiveness, made up of small pieces of stone or sm alt - this is a mosaic. What is a mosaic? This is an ornament, a landscape or an image of a person, not painted with paints, but assembled from small pieces of natural materials, similar to a single brush stroke. They are uneven, irregularly shaped, but nevertheless closely fitted to each other, which creates a coherent artistic image.

The Romans were the most devoted admirers of this art form. We althy citizens necessarily decorated their houses, fountains and paths in gardens, stone benches and platforms near the house with mosaics. With the development of crafts and arts, mosaic artists honed their skills more and more. In the era of early Christianity, this art becomes the most popular in the decoration of temples. Magnificent examples of gold and silver mosaics and nowcan be seen in the most ancient Christian shrines - in the famous cathedral of Aachen (Germany), in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, in churches in Italy, etc.

Gold and silver pieces of sm alt still radiate an "unearthly divine" light, and the images of saints against their background seem completely weightless, incorporeal, floating in space, which, of course, fully corresponds to the religious worldview that this story so successfully conveys technique. Mosaic was used to decorate not only Christian churches, this art was masterfully mastered by Islamic artists, creating their Muslim shrines.

By the middle of the eighteenth century in Italy, artisans learned how to make the smallest pieces of colored glass, which contributed to the further development of mosaic art and its entry into secular life. What is glass mosaic? Actually, the way of creating a work of art has remained the same. The smallest pieces of colored glass were sunk into a binding base and created a multicolored artistic canvas. The only difference is that the glass represented an unlimited number of shades, and its pieces were so small that they made it possible to create the finest color transitions. This made it possible for artists to even copy the great paintings of the Renaissance.

In Russia, the first who became interested in this technique was M. V. Lomonosov. Back in Germany, he studied the various properties of glass, and then in Russia he used this knowledge and his artistic talent to create monumental mosaic paintings and discoverhis workshop. Mosaic paintings are vivid examples of this art. They were made by students and Lomonosov himself.

What is mosaic today? Modern muralists use this technique quite widely. Walls of houses, halls of museums, shopping centers, theaters, etc. are decorated with mosaics. Nowadays, the reverse set technique is being used more and more - this is when a mosaic picture or its individual fragments is folded from pieces of glass or ceramics on a table in a workshop, gluing onto sheets of tracing paper or thin paper, and then transferred to the place prepared for it and embedded in a binder solution. After drying, the paper is washed off, and a mosaic pattern remains on the wall.

So, what is a mosaic? This is an ancient art, which, due to its peculiarities, namely, the fact that the materials for mosaic masterpieces are stone and glass, remains for centuries, and after many centuries, and even millennia, it preserves for us amazing examples of the work of masters.