MOSAIC. 



MOSAIC. 



MOSAIC, a description of inlaid work by which a design is produced 

 oa a surface by joining together small pieces of differently coloured 

 substances. 



Mosaic work is of great antiquity. By most authorities it is believed 

 to have had its origin in Asia. The * pavement of red, and blue, and 

 white, and black marble," or " of porphyry and marble, and alabaster, 

 and stone of blue colour," hi the court of the garden of King Ahasuenu 

 (Esther, L 0), was no doubt a pavement of mosaic work. In Greece, 

 inlaid pavements of variously coloured marble were among the 

 sumptuous decorations of the time of Alexander. They were for the 

 most part probably of fret-work or geometric patterns ; but among the 

 earliest mentioned by Pliny (' Nat. Hist' XXXVL 80) are those IMoitrota 

 formed of coloured tessera, the work of Sosos of Pergamos, whose 

 masterpiece was the ' Unswept Hall,' a representation of the crumbs 

 and fragments which would be found on a floor after a banquet; 

 together with a cantharus or two-handled vase from which a dove was 

 drinking, while others were pluming themselves and banking in the sun. 

 By the 3rd century B.C. the art bad so far advanced, that, according to 

 Atheiueua (v. 40-47). floors were laid down in the great ship of 

 Hieron II., which were composed of small cubes of stone of every 

 colour, so as to represent the entire history of the siege of Troy : 

 a work, the execution of which occupied 300 workmen an entire 

 year. 



From Greece the art was carried by Greek workmen to Rome, where 



it was known as Opui mtuirum, and acquired universal favour ; an 

 soon came to be applied not only to floors but to walls and ceilings. 

 Pliny and others have left tolerably full particulars of the kinds of 

 mosaic practised at Rome, and of the mode of working ; and many 

 specimens have come down to us. The most common kind was that 

 composed of cubes of different coloured stones, or earthenware cemented 

 together so as to form a regular pattern, and used for pavements. ThU 

 was called Opta tatellatum, from the teaselhe, or teaser* , of which it 

 was formed. Pavements of this description we found wherever the 

 Romans settled, no less than in Rome iteelf in Asia Minor, Sp " 

 Gaul, and England, and not only in cities or large towns, as in Carth 

 | or London, but hi the remotest villages and way-side villas. 8c 

 a house of any size in Pompeii appears to have been without its mosaic 

 pavements. Specimens of these Roman tessellated pavements are to be 

 seen in most national and local museums : the British Museum possesses 

 several which have been found in London and various parts of England. 

 There is, as may be supposed, a wide difference in the artistic taste and 

 technical skill of these specimens, but their general character is the 

 same. They consist usually of a central piece frequently of human 

 beings or animals with a border or frame of a regular pattern. N'.> 

 attempt is made to produce refined gradations of colour or tone, or 

 effects of light and shade ; nor does it appear that the junctions of the 

 tessera were sought to be concealed. The whole treatment of these 

 Roman pavements is large and simple ; the work is decorative work, in 



fact, not meant to be inspected minutely, fig. 1 represents a fne 

 pavement of this description found within the cella of a small temple 

 of Venus at Pompeii A more elaborate and very costly deacripti< n , 

 the true ftctura tie muttm, was that known as Ofta \'em\culal*in t 



which, like tho mosaics, of modem Italy, was composed of extremely 

 small cubes of marble, coloured stones, clay, or glass, and iu vUsb 

 tho musivarii (as the workers in the finer mosaic were . 

 endeavoured to approach as near as possible to the appearance of 



Fig. 2. 



;. 3 



The Immense difficulty of this kind of painting, as it is 

 called, will be understood when it is recollected that 

 degree of light and shadow, and all the gradations of colour, 

 *d, not as in painting proper, by the modification or 



superposition of hues and tinU, but by the juxtaposition of solid pieces 

 of stone or glass ; and that, consequently, these must be sometimes of 



an exceedingly small size, and selected and united with the utmost 

 delicacy and accuracy. Of this kind of mosaic several very beautiful 

 examples have been discovered. One of the most celebrated is that 

 now known as 'The Doves of the Capitol,' which was found, with 

 some other mosaics of great value, in tho villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, 

 and which appears to be a copy or imitation of the Cantharus and 



