MOSAIC.
Among the modes of decorating specially honourable parts of the mosque
or house, none was more esteemed in Cairo than mosaic work, and none was
practised with greater success. By mosaic, we understand the combination
of small pieces of hard substances of different colours, to form a
pattern for a wall or pavement. As hard substances are numerous, and the
manner of combining them is susceptible of considerable variety, the
term mosaic embraces a wide range of artistic processes. Of these the
most familiar is the glass mosaic of Byzantium and Ravenna, in which
cubes of glass, rendered opaque, and coloured with various tints, are so
arranged as to represent figures of saints. Another kind of mosaic,
scarcely less celebrated, is the well-known tesselated pavement of the
Romans, of which there are many examples in England, where the pattern
is formed by the combination of cubes and other small pieces of marbles
of different colours. There is also a sectile mosaic, called Florentine,
where the coloured marble is used as a sort of veneer, and backed by
stouter but common material. The “Opus Alexandrinum” consisted of small
geometrical pieces of coloured marbles let into a marble ground.
Saracenic mosaic, in Egypt, is a combination of the tesselated method
with the larger proportions of sectile mosaic; but it does not exactly
coincide with any of the usual European processes. In its most familiar
application, as a dado about four feet high, running along the wall of
the sanctuary of a mosque, or round a principal room in a palace, it
consists of upright slabs of marble of different colours and different
widths, so arranged as to form a series of rectangular panels, divided
and framed by narrower bands. Thus the tomb-mosque of El-Ghōry, built in
1503, has a niche inlaid with blue, yellow, and red marbles, in zigzag
stripes, while the double dado on either side of it, running the whole
width of the south-east wall, in two lines, one high up, the other low,
is of red, yellow, and black marbles, arranged in square or oblong
panels, the black forming the pattern, and the red and yellow the
centres and borders of the design. The niche of Kalaūn has black, red,
and yellow mosaic, picked out with little spots of blue tile. It is not
uncommon to find fragments of tile thus used in combination with marble
or earthenware: there are two specimens of this curious style in the
South Kensington Museum (1499, 1499_a_). A more usual mode of varying
the monotony of the tall slabs of marble and their narrower margins was
by introducing between them a border of tesselated work, made of small
cubes of marbles of various colours, mixed with red pottery or blue
enamel, and frequently with mother-of-pearl. The contrasts between the
different colours of marble, pottery, and glass, and the iridescence of
the mother-of-pearl, give this peculiar class of mosaic a beauty of its
own, which will bear comparison with any other kind of inlay. A fine
example, from the St. Maurice collection, is now in the South Kensington
Museum, and is engraved in fig. 28. It consists of three panels,
enclosed in borders; the central panel is of rich porphyry, bordered
with white and black marble, and with a geometrical edging of mother-of-
pearl filled in with red pottery and yellow marble; the side panels are
of streaked red marble within similar borders; and the whole is enclosed
within a rim of greenstone. This triple panel was, no doubt, one of a
series which formed the dado of a mosque or palace. Dados of this kind
of mosaic are found in the mausoleums of Kāït Bey and El-Ashraf, in the
eastern cemetery, and beautiful examples of red marble inlaid with blue
glass and mother-of-pearl are seen in the ruined sanctuary of the mosque
of El-Māridāny.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.—MOSAIC DADO (¹⁄₂₀th).
(_South Kensington Museum._)]
This is the specially characteristic mosaic of Cairo, and it will be at
once recognized as distinct from the mosaics of Europe. It is made of
natural marbles and mother-of-pearl, with only a sprinkling of such
manufactured substances as pottery or glass enamel; it is arranged in
geometrical designs, with no attempt at representing human or other
figures; and it is fixed in a plaster bed, and not inlet, like the “Opus
Alexandrinum,” into a marble matrix. These are the salient points of the
Saracenic mosaic; and the minuteness and delicacy of the tesserae, the
intricacy of the designs, and the lustre of the mother-of-pearl, combine
to produce an exquisitely beautiful effect.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.—MOSAIC PAVEMENT (¹⁄₁₅th).
(_South Kensington Museum._)]
Precisely similar mosaics are found about the tribunes of the Coptic
churches, and there is every reason to believe that the art is
essentially a Christian one, preserved by the Copts in Egypt from very
early times, while in the west it was suffered to die out and be
supplanted by the Byzantine glass mosaic. Eusebius’s mention of
variegated marbles on the walls of the church of St. Saviour at
Jerusalem, in A.D. 333, seems to point to this form of mosaic, which
would thus be traced back to the fourth century. Surviving specimens
are, however, mainly found in Egypt; and the chief example in Europe is
the apse of Torcello, the mosaics of which closely resemble the niche of
a mosque or the tribune of a Coptic church at Cairo.[38]
The manner in which mosaics of this description were put together and
set up against the wall was as follows:—Each piece of marble or tessera
of this or other material, having been bevelled from face to back (as
below), the whole mosaic is laid out on the ground, face downwards, and
strong plaster is poured over it, which, entering the interstices
(shaded in the cut) at the back, binds them together into one slab.
Pieces of reed are then laid across the wet surface to strengthen it,
and more plaster is poured on, till the thickness is about two inches.
Large surfaces can thus be bound together, lifted, and plastered to the
wall, without breakage. The bevelling of the edges not only gives the
plaster a grip on the tesserae, but saves labour in fitting the pieces
together: for instead of the whole of the sides having to be exactly
parallel and accurately fitted to the adjoining side, only the faces and
the top edges of the tesserae and slabs have to be ground, so as to form
accurate junctures at the front alone; and the backs and sides are left
quite rough. Tiles are bevelled in the same manner, and this constitutes
a general distinction between Eastern and European tiles, for the latter
are hardly ever bevelled. The Cairo mosaic worker, who gave Mr. Wild the
foregoing account of the method of his art, also stated that no drawings
were as a rule made beforehand, but the mosaic was constructed out of
the artist’s head as he arranged it on the ground.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.—MODE OF BEVELLING MOSAICS.]
Two spandrils of a niche in the South Kensington Museum present some
peculiarities in colour and materials (884, 884_a_, St. Maurice). The
ground is composed of red pottery, formed from powdered water jars; the
geometrical pattern is marked out by lines of mother-of-pearl, and
marble and blue enamel is restricted to the small points which form the
centres of the geometrical systems; the edging of the whole is of
greenstone.
Most of the Mamlūk mosques of Cairo have mosaics in their niches, and in
the dado on either side, but the mosaic is not always of the rich and
intricate character of the panel engraved in fig. 28. In many of the
mosques, notably those of El-Ghōry and Sultan Hasan, the mother-of-pearl
and pottery are omitted, and the mosaic consists of marble slabs and
borders, in two or three colours. In Sultan Hasan the dado is of black
and white slabs, simply arranged—
[Illustration]
The pulpit is also constructed of variegated marbles, arranged in
medallions, in a European style, with a much less pleasing effect than
the usual wooden panelling; and a column is also formed of alternate
drums of yellow, white, and black marble.
The mosaic pavements of Cairo are of a somewhat different character from
those employed for wall decoration. Naturally such substances as mother-
of-pearl and glass are not suited to pavements, where they would offer
very inadequate resistance to the feet. The pavements are therefore
generally composed entirely of marble tesserae (and sometimes red
earthenware), of larger size than the delicate pieces that are included
in wall mosaics, and arranged so as to form geometrical patterns within
the space of about two feet square. Eighteen squares of this description
are preserved in the South Kensington Museum, of which two are engraved
in figs. 29 and 31. Each square is made separately, and the pieces are
set, not in plaster, but in a composition of lime and clay, impervious
to water: the clay must be unburnt, just as it comes from the pit. A
slab (no. 490-1872) in the South Kensington Museum is of this
composition, inlaid with porphyry, glass, and greenstone. The most
common application of mosaic pavements is to the durkā‘a, or lower floor
of a room, which faces the entrance, and commonly contains a fountain.
Mr. Wild has preserved drawings of several of these mosaic fountain
floors, which would well repay reconstruction in England.[39]
The marbles most commonly employed in Cairo mosaics are the red, yellow,
black, and white varieties, and the red is sometimes very beautifully
streaked. It has been generally supposed that these were imported ready
polished from Italy, but there is evidence that this was by no means the
invariable custom. Nāsir-i-Khusrau, who visited Egypt in the eleventh
century, in the reign of the Fātimy Khalif El-Mustansir, states that
marbles were very common at Ramla, near Alexandria, and that the walls
of most of the houses there were coated with marble plaques,
artistically inlaid, and carved with arabesques. The slabs were cut with
a toothless saw and Mekka sand, and the colours of the marbles were red,
green, black, white, mottled, &c.[40] The traveller does not state where
the marbles came from, in the rough; but there are certainly no marble
quarries near Ramla, unless the ancient temples and other buildings of
Roman and Christian times were utilized in this manner. The Mohammadan
builders were in the habit of making raids upon the Christian remains of
Egypt whenever they were in need of materials for a new mosque. We read
how Beybars, when he was building his mosque outside the north gate of
Cairo, in 1268, collected marbles from all the towns of Egypt, where no
doubt the churches still retained something of their ancient splendour;
while the sanctuary was lined with marbles and carved wood brought from
the fortress of Jaffa, which he had just captured at the point of the
sword. The majority of the columns used in mosques appear to have been
stolen from earlier buildings, and the ancient Egyptian monuments were
laid under contribution. ‘Abd-el-Latīf, the physician of Baghdād, who
travelled in Egypt in the year 1200 A.D., tells us how attempts were
made to pull down the granite of the Red Pyramid of Menkara, at Gīza,
for building purposes, so early as the reign of the Khalif El-Mamūn, in
the beginning of the third century of the Flight; and though the attempt
failed, and the workmen declared that they could make no impression upon
the huge mass, the practice of borrowing stone from the pyramids and
temples of ancient Egypt still continued. Hieroglyphic inscriptions are
occasionally found on blocks of black diorite and other stones in the
mosques, _e.g._ of El-Gāwaly. It is therefore not improbable that the
Ramla marble-works were supplied, at least in part, from the older
monuments of Egypt, though they may have been reinforced by importation.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.—MOSAIC PAVEMENT (¹⁄₁₅th).
(_South Kensington Museum._)]
The red porphyry, or _rosso antico_, the green-stone or serpentine, and
the black diorite and slate, which occur in mosaics, are quarried in the
mountains of the Arabian desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea; and
alabaster, which was sparingly used in mediaeval times, was found near
Asyūt, on the Nile.