Aesthetic Exploration: Mosaics

A mosaic is one big piece of art that is made up of a bunch of small pieces. Mosaics are used in both decorative art and interior design, and are often seen in churches and many museum’s in Europe.

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Mosaics were first found in Mesopotamia in the 3^rd millennium BC, where they were made with small pebbles or anything else that could be useful in creating a larger picture.

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As you can see from these older mosaics, there does not need to be one object or center of focus for a mosaic, unlike many other forms of art. Although there are many mosaics that do adapt this form of art, as seen in photo 3, there are also many mosaics that can simply be patterns that give life to a section of a room or building.

As stated before, mosaics are also very prevalent in church and other religious settings. Church ceilings are covered with thousands of small glass pieces that end up in beautiful pieces of art. Creating such large mosaics on ceilings are not impressive simply because of the size of the art, but also because of the placement of the art. If placing thousands of small glass pieces to create one large picture does not sound hard enough, imagine doing it on a curved surface laying on your back suspended in the air. These mosaics are not only beautiful because of the finish product, but also because of the long and hard work that went into creating them.

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Picture Sources:

1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Christ_Pantocrator_mosaic_from_Hagia_Sophia
2. http://www.lisaendersby.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/blog.jpg
3. https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/74/7974-004-40A79019.jpg
4. http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/20000/nahled/church-mosaic-11297170211c4r.jpg
5. https://beheld.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/church-of-the-holy-trinity-budva.jpg
6. https://pixabay.com/p-92258/?no_redirect