Mosaic Art

Mosaic is a form of decorated art, an aspect of interior decoration or of a cultural significance as a cathedral in which small pieces of colored material were used to create a pattern or a picture.  Significantly used in Roman Dwellings but was used in ancient times for domestic interior decoration.
The art for was not born in a particular time or place and therefore requires an understanding of the civilization.  Mosaics appeared sporadically in different cultures and locations not connected with the others.  The beginnings are difficult to identify but historians believe that the art form originated somewhere in the Orient.
Two thousand years BC, the first manifestations were in Chaldean architecture where some columns were covered with mosaics, small cones of clay were embedded in the structure and painted.
Mosaics were drawn by an artist and passed on to an artisan who would make the tesserae (individual pieces) for the mosaic. Broken pottery and stone based materials made the colors of the mosaic most often laid by hand. The most common color combinations used were Ironstone (red and brown), Limestone and sandstone (yellow and brown), slate (blue and black) and Chalk (white).  They were set at slight angles to the wall so they caught the light in various different places. Mosaics were also formed from naturally colored pebbles.
Egyptians were the first to use glass paste in palaces and temples, and it is believed the usage of glass mosaics reached Italy from Egypt.
One of the Roman remains mostly intact were the mosaics as they were considered the roman carpets of time.  Romans used Mosaics as their floor coverings and the walls mostly fell to decay the floors were left intact and Often times only the wealthy could afford a mosaic as a personalization of their family and used to make a statement about their position in society.
In the 4th century BC, Mosaics were found in the Macedonian palace-city of Aegae, and they enriched the floors of Hellenistic Villas.  In the late 4th Century, wall and ceiling mosaics were adapted to Christian uses. The greatest developments were from the Byzantine Empire.
In the Greek-Roman period, various techniques of decoration were popular:
• Opus Signinum: In this technique developed by the Greeks the mosaic was constituted of “ciottoli”, or pebbles, that were randomly placed, with rudimental designs, and cemented into place with clay or plaster. • Opus tesselatum: In this technique, the mosaic is constituted or small pieces, mostly squares of about one centimeter, made of stone, enamel, and glass paste, also colored.  The pieces were placed one next to the other with very little space between so as not to show the underlying base. • Opum vermiculatum:  This technique was very similar to the Opus tesselatum, differing mostly in the way in which the pieces were cut to shape and size best suited for the design that was being created.  The outlines figures were more accurately depicted.• Opus sectile:  In this type of mosaic, designs were not depicted with pieces of stone etc but instead with pieces of marble or hard stones, cut in such a manner to create uniform colors or patterns.
Materials of various origins are found in mosaics.  The most common are marble, glass paste, terracotta, mother or pearl, shells, enamels, gold and silver, depending on what was more suited to the effect that was sought.