Modern Mosaic.—The art of mosaic for mural decoration has
never been deeply implanted in the artistic sensibilities of the
north of Europe, nor has it been employed much either in
France, or Germany, or England. It ceased to be generally
adopted in Italy when fresco, oil and tempera painting came
into vogue. Gothic architecture is ill-suited to its robust claims
as a decorative art; and the incoming fashion for the latest
and least interesting development of classical architecture,
“Palladian,” divorced not only it, but mural painting also,
from all architectural schemes. To be properly consequent
and effective, buildings, ecclesiastical or public, should be
constructed with the intention of being covered almost entirely
by mosaics, which demand rich environment, marble or other
colour; mosaic is essentially a colour medium. It is therefore
scarcely surprising that when mural decoration became preeminently
pictorial, and gestures and expression grew complicated,
elaborate, and naturalistic, an art limited in its powers
of presenting such manifestation of realistic design was relegated
into the limbo of obscurity.
There are no instances of the use of mosaic in England after the Roman occupation. The Normans, who derived it from the Greeks and Saracens, and adopted it in Sicily, did not import it either to France or England. Although English churches, and French also, were highly decorated with polychromy from early times up to the 16th century, there is no evidence of mosaic ever having been used. The revival of a school of mosaicists in Rome during the 17th century, employed in the decoration of St Peter’s, and here and there sparsely engaged in other churches, led to the idea which Wren would have carried into effect, namely, making use of mosaic for the cathedral of St Paul’s in London; but his scheme, if it was ever really entertained, was not carried out, as we all know; and the art, which might have become the fashion in England, remained an exotic. Even late into the years of the 19th century mosaic decoration was regarded by classical purists as a barbarous art, and the glorious decorations in that material to be seen in Sicily, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Russia were disregarded as works of high art. They were in many cases cut out to provide room for extravagant and vulgar designs in fresco or tempera, unmeaning, undecorative, and wholly abominable as decoration. Those Roman mosaics over the altars in St Peter’s, being copies of celebrated oil pictures, while they cannot be denied excellence as such and marvellous dexterity, reveal the worst possible taste, for they attempt to represent adequately, in cubes, touches of the brush which were spontaneous, fluid, thick and thin, and as sensitive and spontaneous as the finger pressure on the violin string, so accurate that the least deviation from absolute position produces discord.
The restrictions on mosaic are many, and some are obvious. In the first place, mosaic is not suited for a small scale of design. It is true that in the Opera del Duomo in Florence there is a miniature mosaic (executed in the 12th century) of extraordinary beauty, which must have taken a lifetime to execute; but still this remains a curiosity, a bit of craftsmanship rather than a great work of art. There is also a copy of Mr Holman Hunt’s “Finding the Saviour in the Temple,” executed for Clifton College by assistants in Messrs Powell’s establishment in Whitefriars, London; it is admirably done, no doubt, but it is a long way behind the original, which is a design wholly ill adapted to mosaic. There are several other instances, notably one by Mr H. Holiday of “The Last Supper,” where mosaic has been employed to translate a beautiful design which would have been more satisfactorily executed either in oil or water colours. The primal and most obvious limitation is in matters of detail—detail as regards a multiplicity of forms, many gradations either of colour or tone and naturalistic accidents. In this respect good mosaic is like good basso relievo; it is accomplished by firmly pronounced outlines, unconfused masses, large planes unbroken up by small adjuncts, and generalized and conventionalized forms and simple colour. So all small curves, as well as small tints, should be eliminated, because it is not in the nature of the material to do them justice. One can scarcely conceive a choice less happy for mosaic than the centre group taken out of the upper portion of the Disputa fresco in the Vatican by Raphael, yet this florid piece of work, so facile in creation, was chosen to be executed on the eastern Wall of the morning chapel in St Paul’s.
It is useless to illustrate the many similar mistakes that have been made. They were made in some of the earlier work in the choir of St Paul’s. The best example of mosaic on a small scale is in Ravenna, the tomb of Galla Placidia; the best upon a large scale is the great Christ at the east end of the cathedral at Monreale. These two works absolutely justify the means to the end. Interesting are the designs made by Sir Edward Burne-Jones for the mosaics for the American church in Rome, but the execution and colour are alike monotonous. The cathedral of Chester contains a series of mosaic pictures designed by Mr Clayton. The Guards’ chapel in St James’s is adorned likewise by the same artist, under the direction of the late Sir Arthur Blomfield. In the chapel for the school at Giggleswick are mosaics designed by T. G. Jackson, R.A., admirably and broadly treated in true mosaic character; these were executed in situ, and not, according to the modern habit, upon paper, away from their environment and by a foreign firm. Those mosaic pictures which are placed in niches in the great gallery of South Kensington Museum are failures quâ mosaic, though the designs in many instances are fine, notably those by Lord Leighton and Val Prinsep; but their execution is uninteresting, because the cubes are laid so flatly and so evenly that they suggest an oil picture appliqué upon a flat ground.
Messrs Powell have been employed on several occasions to decorate churches with mosaic. This firm has adopted the old style, and rejected the new one initiated by Dr Salviati of Venice. If we observe the surface of a fine Greek mosaic, such as that of Andrea Tafi in the Baptistery of Florence, or the few remains of unrestored mosaic in St Mark’s, Venice, or indeed other works scattered over Italy, we shall see that it is rough, not smooth; that the cubes are irregular in shape; that there is always a space of the ground colour left, red or white, and visible between each cube. In modern mosaic, with rare exceptions, restoration or other, the cubes have been jammed up closely together, and the surface is as smooth as a piece of paper; thereby is engendered a mechanical and uninteresting surface, over which light plays with monotony, and hence that brilliant and scintillating effect so essentially the character of true mosaic is absent. This defect—and it is a grave one—is evident in the works in mosaic more or less recently set up in Paris, notably in the apse of the Pantheon, the east end of the Madeleine, and the vaulting of the great staircase of the Louvre. Those in the apse are finely designed, but scarcely look like mosaic, those in the Madeleine still less so, and the last not at all.
The artist who designs for this material must set aside all the principles he has learned to estimate in paint, either of oil or tempera. As an instance of a painter, pre-eminently delicate in his colour and tone, failing as a mosaic designer we may quote Cimabue, whose beautiful designs in the cathedral at Pisa would have been far more effective had the artist painted them upon the wall with the medium in the requirements of which he was so great a master. The same criticism may apply to the mosaics in recent years set up on the West front of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The very first principles which go to make a fine picture are just those which should be avoided in mosaic—elaborate modelling, delicate transitions of light and shade and picturesque effects of dark and light, materialistic resemblance indeed. The designer for mosaic should ever bear in mind his material, »and in his designs for it he should accentuate those characteristics which belong essentially and specifically to mosaic and to no other technique. If he is a painter, he must forget his lessons in that art and take up with new ones—those which teach broad masses of colour obtained in lines. He will find that effects gained by a technique employed in oil colour look bald and ridiculous when translated into mosaic. Watercolour and pastel are by far the best media for cartoons to be copied in mosaic. We do not know how these were executed
