Home » categories » rare book library » Castellani. Gems.
This chapter is tagged (labeled) with: 

Mosaic

Mica Page of 243 Mosaic Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
150
GEMS.
The most ancient works in mosaic are found amongst the Egyptian jewels. They consist of pieces of glass variously painted, and in enchased gold setting.
Many pavements of the Greco-Romano period were great mosaics of square marble of every colour. This work was called opus musivum.
After the fifth century, mosaic was used in the walls and ceilings of churches, no longer in heavy marble, but in bright square enamels, united and supported by a stucco, over a great surface, with the utmost exact­ness, of which we have a splendid example in the Basilica Constantiniana of St. Sophia, and St. Mark's at Venice.
In jewels of the period of Charlemagne, carnelian, plasma, and other agates have been found, set in gold, like the enamel of Egyptian work.
In the seventeenth century, at Florence, and soon after at Dresden, they made mosaics of pietra dura, that is, of agate, jasper, and other gems, worked sepa­rately first into the desired form on the wheel, and then fixed with cement into gold, bronze, or marble, to form elegant tables, beautiful ornaments, or pretty feminine adornments.
The mosaic workers of the Vatican, in the eighteenth century, began to make mosaics of glass, in very small proportions, and thus originated the so-called Roman mosaics, which were and are still executed by artists of no little cleverness, who adapt this kind of work to every kind of ornament.
Mica Page of 243 Mosaic
Suggested Illustrations
Other Chapters you may find useful
Other Books on this topic
bullet Tag
This Page