A mosaic is a piece of art or image made from the assemblage of pocket-sized pieces of coloured glass, stone, or other materials.

It is often used in decorative art or as interior decoration. Most mosaics are fabricated of small, flat, roughly foursquare, pieces of stone or drinking glass of unlike colours, known every bittesserae. Some, especially floor mosaics, are fabricated of small rounded pieces of rock, and called "pebble mosaics".

Mosaics take a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. Pebble mosaics were fabricated in Greece mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, both in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

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Mosaic art continued to flourish in Roman times. In that location are many sites in Europe today that however take examples of mosaic floors from Roman times. This is a testament to the durability of the material and the art. Romans also used decorative mosaics for walls, fountains and more. Smaller tesserae, (Pocket-size stones and drinking glass), more than colors and more than shades were also introduced during this menstruation. The Romans continued with the same general pattern and subject field thing of the Greeks. They did some basic figural work but information technology wasn't until the rise of Christianity that figural wall mosaics really became popular.

Mosaic art flourished in the Byzantine Empire from the sixth to the 15th centuries; that tradition was adopted by the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in the 12th century, by the eastern-influenced Commonwealth of Venice, and also in the Ukraine.

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A mosaic from the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), depicting Mary and Jesus, flanked by John II Komnenos (left) and his wife Irene of Republic of hungary (right), c. 1118 AD

Mosaic fell out of fashion in the Renaissance, though artists like Raphael continued to practise the old technique. Roman and Byzantine influence led Jewish artists to decorate fifth and 6th century synagogues in the Middle Due east with floor mosaics.Mosaic was widely used on religious buildings and palaces in early Islamic fine art, including Islam'due south kickoff great religious edifice, the Dome of the Stone in Jerusalem, and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Mosaic went out of fashion in the Islamic earth after the 8th century.…………

Modernistic Mosaics

Modern mosaics are fabricated by professional person artists, street artists, and as a popular craft. Many materials other than traditional rock and ceramic tesserae may exist employed, including shells, glass and beads.

 Mosaic is in a healthy state in the early 21st century. The field is rich with new ideas and approaches, and organizations such equally The Club of American Mosaic Artists exist to promote mosaic. The worldwide web gives access to a slap-up many artists working in this medium. Mosaics have developed into a pop craft and fine art, and are non limited to professionals. Today's artisans and crafters piece of work with stone, ceramics, shells, art glass, mirror, chaplet, and even odd items like doll parts, pearls, or photographs. While ancient mosaics tended to be architectural, modern mosaics are found covering everything from park benches and flower pots to guitars and bicycles. Items tin can be equally small every bit an earring or every bit large equally a house. Today mosaics are still a pop fine art form. They are used in kitchen glass tile mosaic backsplashes, arts and crafts projects, garden art, as fine fine art, sculpture, park benches and also in public fine art. With mosaics y'all tin can create cute art work that is durable and low maintenance.

Guitar Man, Glass on Woods

Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) is most famous for La Sagrada Familia , (Roman Cosmic church building in Barcelona), and for the mosaic work in Parc Güell, (A public park system composed of gardens and architectonic elements located on Carmel Hill), in Barcelona, Spain. The park, designed by Gaudi and built between 1900 and 1914, contains long, winding rows of tile-covered benches surrounding a big dirt courtyard.

A mosaic dragon greets you at the bottom of the steps when you arrive. Gaudi, a man of religion, a great observer of nature, a brilliant architect, has go a universal effigy of modernistic compages: his contribution to this discipline entailed a break of established patterns, both in mosaics, form and in systems constructive and structural of its buildings, the result of a unique, unprecedented methodology.

TheIi Principal Methods

Directly Method

The directly method of mosaic construction involves straight placing (gluing) the individual tesserae onto the supporting surface. This method is well suited to surfaces that have a 3-dimensional quality, such every bit vases. This was used for the historic European wall and ceiling mosaics, following underdrawings of the master outlines on the wall below, which are often revealed again when the mosaic falls away.

The direct method suits small projects that are transportable. Another advantage of the directly method is that the resulting mosaic is progressively visible, allowing for any adjustments to tile colour or placement.

The disadvantage of the direct method is that the creative person must work directly at the chosen surface, which is often not practical for long periods of fourth dimension, specially for large-calibration projects. Also, information technology is difficult to control the evenness of the finished surface. This is of particular importance when creating a functional surface such as a floor or a table top.

A mod version of the direct method, sometimes chosen "double direct," is to work direct onto fiberglass mesh. The mosaic can and so be synthetic with the design visible on the surface and transported to its final location. Big work can be done in this way, with the mosaic existence cut up for shipping and and then reassembled for installation. It enables the artist to work in comfort in a studio rather than at the site of installation.

Indirect method

The indirect method of applying tesserae is oft used for very large projects, projects with repetitive elements or for areas needing site specific shapes. Tiles are applied face up-down to a backing paper using an adhesive, and later on transferred onto walls, floors or arts and crafts projects. This method is most useful for extremely large projects as information technology gives the maker time to rework areas, allows the cementing of the tiles to the backing panel to be carried out quickly in one operation and helps ensure that the front surfaces of the mosaic tiles and mosaic pieces are flat and in the same plane on the forepart, fifty-fifty when using tiles and pieces of differing thicknesses. Mosaic murals, benches and tabletops are some of the items commonly made using the indirect method, as information technology results in a smoother and more even surface.