MOSAIC, a description of inlaid work bjr which a design is produced on a surface by joining together small pieces of differently coloured substance..
Mosaic work is of great antiquity. By most authorities It is believed to have had its origin in Asia. The pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble," or " of porphyry and marble, and alabaster, and stone of blue colour," in the court of the garden of King Ahasuerus (Father, I. 6), was no doubt a pavement of mosaic work. In Greece, inlaid pavements of variously coloured marble were among the sumptuous decorations of the time of Alexander. They were for the most part probably of fret-work or geometric patterns ; but among the earliest mentioned by Pliny (' Nat.Ifiat.' xxxvi. 60) are those litAostrota formed of coloured tessera), the work of Segos of Pergamon, whose masterpiece was the ' Unwept Hall,' a representation of the crumbs and fragments which would be found on a floor after a banquet ; together with a cantharus or two-handled vase from which a dove was drinking, while others were pluming themselves and basking in the atm. By the 3rd century B.C. the art had so far advanced, that, according to Athenreus (v. 40-47), floors were laid down In the great ship of heron II., which were composed of small cubes of stone of every colour, so as to represent the entire history of tho siege of Troy a work, the execution of which occupied 300 workmen an entire year.
From Greece the art was carried by Greek workmen to Rome, where it was known as Opus musirme, and acquired nnivental favour ; an soon came to be applied not only to floors but to walls and ceilings. Pliny and others have left tolerably full particulars of the kinds of mosaic practised at Rome, and of tho mode of working; and many specimens have come down to us. The most common kind was that composed of cubes of different coloured stones, or earthenware cemented together ao as to form a regular pattern, and used for pavements. This was called Opus tessellatuns, from the teseellre, or teeserre, of which it was formed. Pavements of this description are found wherever the Romans settled, no less than in Rome itself—in Axis Minor, Spain, Gaul, and England, and not only in cities or large towns, as in Carthage or London, but in the remotest villages and way-aide villas. Scarcely a house of any size in Pompeii appears to have been without its meanie pavements. Specimens of theso Roman tessellated pavements are to be seen in most national and local museums : the British Museum possesses several which have been found In London and various parts of England. There is, as may be supposed, a wide difference in the artistic taste and technical skill of these specimens, but their general character is the same. They consist usually of a central piece—frequently of human beings or animals—with a border or frame of a regular pattern. No attempt is made to produce refined gradations of colour or tone, or effects of light and shade ; nor does it appear that the junctions of the tesserre were nought to be concealed. The whole treatment of these Roman pavements is large and simple ; the work is decorative work, in fact, not meant to be inspected minutely. Fig. 1 represents a fne pavemAnt of this description found within the cella of a small temple of Venus at Pompeii. A more elaborate and very costly descriptitn
the truo piciisra de moire, was that known as Opus Verrnieulaluau, which, like the mosaics, of modern Italy, was composed of extremely small cubes of marble, coloured atones, clay, or glass, and iu which the musivarii (as the workers in the finer mosaic were called) endeavoured to approach as near as possible to tho appearance of Tainting. The immense difficulty of this kind of painting, as it is sometimes called, will be understood when It is recollected that every degree of light and shadow, and all the gradations of colour, must be produced, not as in painting proper, by the modification or superposition of hues and tints, but by the juxtaposition of solid pieces of stone or glass ; and that, consequently, these must be sometimes of an exceedingly small size, and selected and united with the utmost delicacy and accuracy. Of this kind of mosaic several very beautiful examples have been discovered. One of the most celebrated is that now known as ' The Doves of the Capitol,' which was found, with , some other mosaics of great value, in the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, and which appears to be a copy or imitation of the Cantharus and Doves described by Pliny as the chief work of Sosos. Cardinal Furietti, who first described this work, counted 160 cubes of marble In one square inch. It was secured for the Capitol by Clement XIII. No less famous are the mosaics of the ' Rape of Europa,' found at Prenesfe, and now in the Barbarini Palace at Rome ; and that, of ' Hercules delivering Hesione,' found near Arpino, and now in the Villa Albani at Naples. Some exquisite examples of this class of mosaics have been found at Pompeii; among others, the noblest yet known, a large piece consisting of many equestrian and other figures, representing, as is supposed, the `Battle of Iesus,' and which is com posed of innumerable small cubes of glass. It is one of the most admirably designed examples of Graeco-Roman art extant, but the exe cution .is not equal to the design. It was found in 1831 in the Casa del Fauno, and is now in the Royal Museum of Naples. Another very celebrated example was found in April, 1762, in the house known as the Villa of Cicero ; it represents four masked figures playing on various instruments and dancing, and bears the name of the artist Dioscorides of Samos. (Fig. 2.) Of more exquisite workmanship-- and in all respects a fine example of Gmeo-Roman art--is a mosaic representing a Choragus, or Master of the Chorus, instructing his actors in their parts, which was found in what was called from it the House of the Choragus at Pompeii. (Fig. 3.) Another description of mosaic work in vogue among the Romans was that called Opus seethe, which consisted of larger pieces of coloured marble very carefully fitted together into pictures of a simple kind, something like what is now practised under the name of Florentine work : this is sometimes called Opus Alexandrinum, from having been first introduced by, or in the reign of, Alexandrinus Severna. Another kind, again, was executed in wood, and known as segmentation.