(Vol. iii., p. 389.)
Among the various kinds of picturesque representation, practised by the
Greeks and Romans, and transmitted by them to after times, is that of
_Mosaic_, a mode of execution which, in its durability of form, and
permanency of colour, possesses distinguished advantages, being
unaffected by heat or cold, drought or moisture, and perishing only with
the building to which it has been originally attached. This art has been
known in Rome since the days of the Republic. The severer rulers of that
period forbade the introduction of foreign marbles, and the republican
mosaics are all in black and white. Under the Empire the art was greatly
improved, and not merely by the introduction of marbles of various
colours, but by the invention of artificial stones, termed by the
Italians _Smalti_, which can be made of every variety of tint. This art
was never entirely lost. On the introduction of pictures into Christian
temples, they were first made of _mosaic_: remaining specimens of them
are rude, but profoundly interesting in an historical point of view.
When art was restored in Italy, mosaic also was improved; but it
attained its greatest perfection in the last and present century. _Roman
mosaic, as now practised, may be described as being the production of
pictures by connecting together numerous minute pieces of coloured
marble or artificial stones. These are attached to a ground of copper,
by means of a strong cement of gum mastic, and other materials, and are
afterwards ground and polished, as a stone would be, to a perfectly
level surface._ By this art not only are ornaments made on a small
scale, but pictures of the largest size are copied. The most remarkable
modern works are the copies which have been executed of some of the most
important works of the great masters, for the altars in St. Peter's.
These are, in every respect, perfect imitations of the originals; and
when the originals, in spite of every care, must change and perish,
these mosaics will still convey to distant ages a perfect idea of the
triumphs of art achieved in the fifteenth century. _Twenty years_ were
employed in making one of the copies I have mentioned. The pieces of
mosaic vary in size from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch, and eleven
men were employed for that time on each picture. A great improvement was
introduced into the art in 1775, by Signor Raffaeli, who thought of
preparing the _smalti_ in what may be termed fine threads. _The pastes
or smalti are manufactured at Venice, in the shape of crayons, or like
sticks of sealing-wax, and are afterwards drawn out by the workman, by a
blowpipe, into the thickness he requires, often almost to an hair, and
are seldom thicker than the finest grass stalk._ For tables, and large
articles, of course, the pieces are thicker; but the beauty of the
workmanship, the soft gradation of the tints, and the cost, depend upon
the _minuteness_ of the pieces, and the skill displayed by the artist. A
ruin, a group of flowers or figures, will employ a good artist about two
months, when only two inches square; and a specimen of such a
description costs from 5_l._ to 20_l._, according to the execution: a
landscape, six inches by four, would require eighteen months, and would
cost from 40_l._ to 50_l._ For a picture of Pæstum, eight feet long by
twenty inches broad, on which four men were occupied for three years,
1000_l._ sterling was asked. The mosaic work of Florence differs
entirely from Roman mosaic, being composed of stones inserted in
comparatively large masses. It is called work in _pietra dura_; the
stones used are all of a more or less precious nature. In old specimens,
the most beautiful works are those in which the designs are of an
arabesque character. The most remarkable specimen of this description of
_pietra dura_, is an octagonal table, in the _Gubinetto di Baroccio_, in
the Florence Gallery. It is valued at 20,000_l._ sterling, and was
commenced in 1623 by Jacopo Detelli, from designs by Ligozzi. Twenty-two
artists worked upon it without interruption till it was terminated, in
the year 1649.
One principal distinction between the ancient and modern mosaic is, I
believe, that the former was arranged in _patterns_, the latter
_coloured in shades_. I shall not take up your columns by dwelling on
the ancient mosaic, which, as all know was in use among the Orientals,
especially the Persians and Assyrians; and from the Easterns the Greeks
received the art. In the Book of Esther, i. 6., we have an allusion to a
mosaic pavement; and Schleusner understands the [Greek: Lithostrôton] of
St. John, xix. 13., to mean a sort of elevated mosaic pavement. Andrea
Tafi, towards the close of the thirteenth century, is said to have
revived this art in Italy, having learned it from a Greek named
Apollonius, who worked at the church of St. Mark at Venice, and to have
been the founder of the modern mosaic.
Now for the derivation. The Lithostrata, or tesselated pavements of the
Romans, being worked in a regular and mechanical manner, were called
_opus musivum, opera qua ad amussim facta sunt_. Hence the Italian
_musaico_, from whence is derived our appellation of _mosaic_; but, like
most of our arts, through the channel of the French _mosaïque_. (Vide
Pitisci _Lexicon_, ii. 242.; Roscoe's _Life of Lorenzo de Medici_;
Winkelman; _Pompeiana_, by Gell; Smith's _Greek and Roman Antiq._;
Beckman's _Inventions_; and _Récherches sur la Peinture en Mosaïque chez
les Anciens_, &c., annexed to his _Description d'un Pavé en Mosaïque_,
&c.: Paris, 1802.)