Mosaics
Images and patterns made by setting small pieces of stone, glass, ceramic or other material into mortar or adhesive.
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About
A mosaic builds a picture from many small units, called tesserae, pressed into plaster, mortar or adhesive. Stone and marble give matt, hard-wearing floors; glass, often backed with gold or silver leaf, makes walls and vaults glitter. The size, angle and direction of the rows shape how the image reads.
Roman villas had elaborate floor mosaics, such as the Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii (about 100 BC). Byzantine artists carried it onto walls and domes; the 6th-century panels of Justinian and Theodora in San Vitale, Ravenna, are among the best preserved. The Umayyad Great Mosque of Damascus (early 8th century) is lined with glass mosaic landscapes. In the modern era Antoni Gaudí covered Park Güell in Barcelona with broken tile, a technique called trencadís, and Isaiah Zagar has spent decades cladding Philadelphia walls in tile and mirror. Look for the flow of rows around the main contours.
