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History of Mosaics
The history of mosaics began around four thousand years ago. Many of the popular pieces displayed in modern museums today are from the Roman and Byzantine empires. It is believed that the first mosaics consisted of terracotta points pushed into backgrounds as decor.
The Greeks have been credited with elevating mosaic into an exquisite form of art. Early on, these works were highly sophisticated using bits of colored stone to form an image. Using this technique, artists were able to produce detailed images of landscapes, people and paintings. Widely used by Greek artisans, these methodical works can still be seen today in many of the Roman ruins in Italy.
Mosaics were also used heavily in sacred structures. Both the Christian and Islamic world imprinted their worship houses with extravagant images using bits of pebble and stone. However, the specific designs would vary greatly depending on whether their origin was from the Eastern or the Western world. Both then and now, styles of mosaic can be geometrical, lexical, mathematical, abstract, realistic, grouted, or ungrouted to name a few. However, they all share the common characteristic of permanence and beauty.
What Is Mosaic:
Mosaics: in art, surface decoration of small colored components--such as stone, mineral, glass, tile, or shell--closely set into an adhesive ground.
The mosaic pieces, usually small squares, triangles, or other regular shapes (called tesserae), are applied to the surface, frequently a wall or floor, which has been prepared with mortar or adhesive to receive the design.
Mosaic differs from inlay in that the pieces are applied to the surface and not inset into a recess below the surface. Each mosaic piece is small, and it is only when the piece forms part of an overall mosaic design that it takes on decorative significance.
Mosaic as an art form has most in common with painting. It represents a design or image in two dimensions.
It is also, like painting, a technique appropriate to large-scale surface decoration. Unlike the painter, however, the mosaic artist is limited in the range of colors available to him by the physical limitation of his materials.
It is difficult, therefore, to achieve the same variation of light and shadow as is possible in painting, although mosaic has qualities that render it more effective for distance effects.
The light-catching qualities of the glass tesserae used in Byzantine mosaic work, for example, as well as the elimination of the middle tones in Byzantine mosaics gave a greater brilliance than painting ever did.
Like each decorative medium, mosaic has qualities unique to itself, which lends it particular suitability to certain decorative functions.
Handcut Mosaic :
Mosaic, the ancient art of putting together tesserae through meticulous and labor-intensive setting to form various patterns, is one of the most powerful ways to decorate floors and walls of your residence, thus to fully express yourself. Here, what you see are not commonplace machine-made tiles rolling down from an assembly line. They are artistic pieces from the ingenious hands, creative minds, liberated souls, and passionate hearts, with careful detailing and full attention to scale and proportion; they are vivid demonstration of our mosaicists' relentless pursuance for beauty and perfection; they are eloquent testimony of their devotion, dedication, and determination to carry on one of the oldest human crafts.
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