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Aug 15, 2024 · mosaic, in art, decoration of a surface with designs made up of closely set, usually variously coloured, small pieces of material such as stone, mineral, glass, tile, or shell.
Aug 15, 2024 · Mosaic - Roman, Glass, Stone: Eager to adopt the artistic culture of the Hellenized eastern Mediterranean, the Romans introduced mosaic in this exquisite form in both their domestic architecture and their places of worship. Pompeii has yielded a host of opus vermiculatum works datable to the 2nd or 1st century bce.
Aug 15, 2024 · Mosaic - Art, Renaissance, Modern: With the downfall of Byzantium in the 15th century, there perished that milieu in which mosaic had been constantly cultivated and had undergone continuous renewal in response to changing patterns of religious and cultural life.
Aug 15, 2024 · Mosaic - Ancient, Byzantine, Islamic: Among the cultures of the ancient Middle East there is one remarkable occurrence of a mosaic-like technique: the exteriors of some large architectural structures dating from the 3rd millennium bce, at Uruk (Erech) in Mesopotamia, are decorated with long terra-cotta cones imbedded in the wall surface.
Mosaic floor fragment, stone tesserae from Syria, 6th century ce; in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. mosaic, Surface decoration of small coloured components—such as stone, glass, tile, or shell—closely set into an adhesive ground.
Aug 15, 2024 · Mosaic - Glass, Tiles, Patterns: Glass, which first appeared among the materials of mosaic in the Hellenistic period (3rd–1st century bce), brought unlimited colour possibilities to the art. In floors, however, it had to be used sparingly because of its brittleness.
Mosaic is often described as a kind of painting without paint. Mosaic art pieces are made by setting small tiles—called tesserae (singular tessera) by the Romans, meaning “cubes,” or “dice”—into a wet cement or lime plaster surface. In ancient times mosaics were made with colored pebbles.
Aug 15, 2024 · Mosaic - Pre-Columbian, Art, Patterns: The art of mosaic in pre-Columbian Central America was marked by a combination of great technical skill and widespread use.
Aug 15, 2024 · During the same period, mosaic art of the Eastern Empire, having abandoned conventional illustration, was boldly exploring the way that lay open, in mosaic art, toward a new kind of imagery. In the mosaics of the 6th century are found the earliest refinement introduced by the Byzantines to enhance the brilliance of gold tesserae.
Aug 15, 2024 · The 20th-century Austrian scholar Otto Demus, in studies on the aesthetics of middle Byzantine mosaic art, coined the term space icons for this kind of imagery, in which the forms of architecture collaborate to make the solemnly stylized figures appear with unexpected tactility.
