Mosaicing is the decorative art of creating a pattern or picture from small pieces of stone, glass pottery or other material. The small pieces are called tesserae and the result is a mosaic. For the practical or artistically inclined a hobby project could be to create a personal mosaic for your home or garden.
Finding a mosaic on a police wall (not a cell) got me started on mosaics. “Uniting The Community” is a mosaic in Scarborough that was created as a community project by the artist Gabrielle Naptali and many helpers. It contains over 45,000 pieces of glass and is explained in more detail on The Joy of Shards website
Halifax Town Hall contain some lovely Victorian floor tiles including this White Rose of Yorkshire in coloured stone. If you do not wish to make your own mosaics as a hobby you can still enjoy finding good examples. They are often found in and around public buildings.
The use of modern materials has brought mosaics upto date and some digitally produced images are quite facinating. David Hockney used a mosaic of photographs to capture some innovative art work.
Mosaic welcome plaque gets the message across in a permanent manner at Sunnybank Nature Reserve, Sheffield.
The History of Mosaics
- The earliest known mosaics were made about 2800 B.C. to decorate buildings.
- Mosaics were used in the jewelry of the Pharoah Tutankhamun.
- Examples from the Byzantine Empire in Egypt are considered the best of their kind.
- Some of the best mosaics date from ancient Rome.
- Hull and York museums and Aldborough are local places to see Roman mosaics.
- Micromosaic jewelry became popular during the 17th & 18th centuries for those on the Grand Tour in Italy the foremost manufacturer of the jewelry.
‘Excavations of a Roman villa site near Rudston in East Yorkshire led to the discovery of several finely-preserved 4th century mosaics. These include the Venus Mosaic – which takes its name from the charming but naively portrayed goddess dominating its central panel – and the Charioteer Mosaic. The charioteer is portrayed facing the viewer in a quadriga or four-horse racing chariot. In his hands he holds the symbols of victory – a palm branch and wreath. Fragments of other mosaics from the same villa are on display in the museum. These include parts of a pavement decorated with images of fish and other marine life.’
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I have used images from Flickr under a creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license:-
Mosaic Scroll by AEJHarrison,
Yorkshire Rose by nualabugeye,
Mosaic welcome plaque, Sunnybank Nature Reserve, Sheffield by Joey’s Dream Garden
and Rudston Mosaics by Hull City Council