A mosaic is an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. The mosaic mirror frames I made for my own master bathroom, for instance, were an assembly of glass with rectangular tiles set into a grid-patterned border and an irregular accent of circles and triangles.  See my post Pair of Mosaic Mirrors Completed.

Ancient mosaics were typically made of uniform, cube-shaped stone including marble, slate and other natural materials.  Here’s one example from the ancient ruins of Ephesus in present-day Turkey.  I shared several other  examples in the post, Learning from the Ancient Masters.

In today’s post, we’ll look at another material used to make mosaics‒broken china and tiles.  This style of mosaic goes by a number of different names including “trencadis”, “pique assiette” and “crazy paving”.  The most well-known person to have advocated for this decorative technique was Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.  Gaudí, who belonged to the Modernisme movement (ie the Art Nouveau movement in Catalonia), was famous for his architectural genius and unique style.  Seven of his sites in/near Barcelona Spain are designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing several of his works and they are stunning!  As is typical of proponents of the Art Nouveau movement, Gaudí took a holistic view of his creations and designed for all aspects of his one-of-a-kind style.  According to Wikipedia, “Gaudí was also an innovator in the realm of craftsmanship, conceiving new technical and decorative solutions with his materials, for example his way of designing ceramic mosaics made of waste pieces (“trencadís”) in original and imaginative combinations.”  Several outstanding examples of trencadis, such as the below bench back, can be seen at Park Güell in Barcelona.  

Around 1900, Gaudí and his collaborator Josep Maria Jujol worked on this park for the Güell family.  As author and master mosaicist Sonia King put it in her book Mosaic Techniques & Traditions, “Parc Güell is a mosaicist’s dream-a fantasy environment of broken tile and glass.  It is a prime example of integrating three-dimensional surfaces with mosaic decoration.  Gaudí’s structures became huge mosaic-clad sculptures.”  As you enter the main entrance to Park Güell, you are greeted by the Casa del Guarda (Caretaker’s House).  The whimsical shapes of these structures are artfully covered in trencadis.

Here’s a closer look at the broken china trim framing a window.
Directly in front of the main entrance is the main stairway which is often called the Dragon Stairway.   The below dragon, or salamander, fountain is covered with a decorative tile-shard mosaic.  It’s a crowd favorite and visitors line up to have their photos taken with Gaudí’s dragon.

Broken china and ceramic tiles seem to be on every surface around the main entrance and central stairway.  Here are a few examples of decorative panels from the garden walls.
At the top of the Dragon Stairway, you enter the Hypostyle Room which was originally planned as a market place.  It is a covered area made up of 86 striated columns. The ceiling is formed of small domes covered with trencadis.

Here’s a closer look at one of the ceiling medallions.

Above the Hypostyle Room and at the center of Park Güell is a large esplanade known as Plaça de la Natura (Nature Square).  A undulating bench covered in trencadis runs along several sides of the esplanade and acts as a balustrade.  In addition to being beautiful, these serpentine benches are surprisingly comfortable.  Note the white mosaic seat with the fantastic, colorful trencadis along the back.

Here’s a view of the back side.

Park Güell isn’t the only location where Gaudí showcased trencadis.  It is also used extensively at his residential masterpiece, Casa Batlló, especially on the  unusual rooftop structures.  The arched roofline is said to recall the spine of a dragon with the ceramic tiles being the dragon’s scales.

This unique grouping of chimneys, also at Casa Batlló, is artfully covered in trencadis.

Similar marvels are revealed on the spectacular terrace on the roof at Casa Milà (popularly known as “La Pedrera” meaning the stone quarry) which is another one of Gaudí’s residential masterpieces.

In the below photo, the rooftop arch frames the Sagrada Família in the distance.  The enormous Roman Catholic basilica was designed by Gaudi around 1882 and has been under construction ever since.  It is considered his most controversial creation.

I didn’t notice a great deal of trencadis in the Sagrada Família but these towers had recently been topped with clusters of trencadis fruit.
Gaudí was not the only proponent of trencadis.  The Palau de la Música (Music Palace) in Barcelona, designed by architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, is a splendid structure which showcases a number of outstanding artworks including these trencadis-clad pillars.  I could go on and on but that will have to wait for another post.

More Info

To learn more about mosaics, check out my posts Pair of Mosaic Mirrors Completed and Learning from the Ancient Masters.
You can learn more about Barcelona’s Park Güell on their website.
Excellent websites are available for Gaudí’s masterpieces at Casa Batlló, Casa Milà, and Sagrada Família.
Check out the Palau de la Música website for more information about this spectacular structure.
Sonia King’s book, Mosaic Tradition and Technique, is a great reference.
To learn more about the Modernisme movement as part of the Art Nouveau period, check out my post My Art Nouveau Love Affair.

Today’s Takeaways

1. Small pieces of various materials, including glass, mirror, stone, pebbles, and broken tile and china, can be assembled into a mosaic.
2. Mosaics can be made in different styles including the irregularity of trencadis.
3. If you have a chance to visit Barcelona Spain, be sure to take in the trencadis from the Modernisme movement.

The more time I spend making mosaics, the more I want to know about their history and traditions.  I’ve had the good fortune to see many mosaic works, including priceless ancient masterpieces, during my travels.  I’d like to share a few highlights in today’s post.
The first mosaic works were made of water-smoothed pebbles in black and white.  The designs were primarily geometric shapes and patterns.  These mosaics were generally used on pavements and floors.  I don’t know if the below floor from the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey is original but it’s a great example of a pebble mosaic.  Simple, yet beautiful!

Over time, craftsmen started cutting the pebbles into pieces which evolved into cubed pieces of stone (aka tesserae).  They also expanded the types of stone being used to introduce more colors.  Here’s an example of a mosaic floor uncovered in the ancient ruins of Ephesus.  Ephesus, an ancient Greek city dating back to 6000 BC, is located in present-day Turkey. Just imagine, these mosaic floors have survived for over 8000 years!



As the art of mosaics continued to evolve, tesserae got smaller and mosaicists created more detailed designs.  Here’s an extraordinary example from the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy where many of the treasures from the ancient city of Pompeii are displayed.  This mosaic, titled the Battle between Alexander and Darius III, is from between 125 and 120 BC.

According to the exhibit card, “This mosaic represents the moment in which Alexander the Great (to the left) attacks the chariot of Darius king of Persians.  The scene is commonly identified as one of the decisive battles in the conquest of the East… , even if an alternative hypothesis is that it brings together episodes from various battles so as to exhalt the figure of Alexander and his undertakings against the Persian king. …The mosaic is probably a copy … of a famous Greek picture painted by Philoxenos of Eretria … at the end of the fourth century B.C.  … This makes this mosaic the most significant documentation of this type of painting, the originals of which are now totally destroyed.”
Here’s a closer look at our hero, Alexander the Great.  Notice the amazing detail of his hair, eyes, eyebrow and other facial features.

Here’s a doomed soldier offering his own horse to the retreating Darius III.

Here’s a closeup of another unidentified soldier.  Notice how skillfully tesserae are used to outline and shade his face.

Mosaicists continued to tell stories via their artwork‒sometimes on a grand scale.  Here’s a restored section from the Great Palace Mosaic in Istanbul, Turkey which dates back to around 306-337 AD.  As stated on the exhibit card: “Nowhere else in antiquity can we find a tessellated floor of quite the size and quality of the Great Palace Mosaic in Istanbul.  This unique masterpiece also provides us with the single reference that we have of the furnishings of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople.  At the time of its making, the mosaicist craft, rooted in Anatolia and artistically perfected in Greece and Italy, could draw on a long-established tradition.  The best artists from all corners of the Empire were employed to lay this splendidly ornamented floor.”  This floor required an astonishing 75-80 million tesserae!  Each tessera is about 5mm in edge length.

Unfortunately, only about 1/8 of the original floor survived but it is rich with elaborate design elements and details including 150 human and animal figures.  This is my favorite!

This donkey is also outstanding.

Here’s an example of a beautiful border.

A few years ago, I attended a Roman Mosaic Workshop while visiting Rome, Italy.  It was a unique opportunity to see an authentic mosaic studio and to learn from a professional master mosaicist. The workshop was hosted by Studio Cassio where mosaics have been the Cassio family business for the past two centuries.  The studio restores artwork at archaeological sites and monuments.  They have restored mosaics to their former splendor in more than 300 churches, museums, cemeteries, fountains and other buildings worldwide.  See More Info below.

In addition to learning about traditional methods, materials and tools, I was able to make a small mosaic picture from local marble tesserae.  Here’s my project in progress.  Notice how similar the tesserae are to those from the Ephesus ruins.

Studio Cassio had a number of sample, reproduction works available for us to examine and study.

One of the challenges of working with mosaics is using small, individual pieces to create a pleasing, larger image.  Looking closely, the individual pieces don’t look like much but, looking from a normal viewing distance, the individual pieces meld together to create an overall image.  It’s similar to working with the individual pixels versus an overall photograph.  The added difficulty of working with a limited color palette and with materials which are not easily shaped increases the challenge.
In the below photo, the color and shape of the individual tessera are clearly visible and, frankly, not all that appealing.

But when you step away, the overall image is revealed.  It’s fascinating to me that this combination of colors and shapes could create such a beautiful set of lips!

Here’s another example from Studio Cassio.  Notice how the monk’s head stands out from the background.

The mosaicist has masterfully applied several techniques to accomplish this delineation. A very narrow, outline has been applied along the monk’s face‒with a combination of darker-colored tesserae and a perfectly placed intersection line.  In addition, the tesserae is deliberately placed in a different pattern on the surface of the face versus the cross behind it.  The face is laid in small, odd-shaped tesserae following the contours of the face while the cross is laid with angular, rather large tesserae in a regular linear pattern.

This close-up of the lance heads provides another example of how varying the color, size and pattern of the tesserae can effectively delineate elements of the overall image.

This is just a glimpse into the history and tradition of mosaics.  There is much more to be learned from the accomplished mosaic masters from the past.

More Info

Check out my previous post, Pair of Mosaic Mirrors Completed, to see a contemporary mosaic project I completed recently.
The 8000-year-old Golden City of Ephesus was the capital of the ancient world.  It’s no surprise, then, that Ephesus is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.  You can learn more on the Visit Ephesus website.
The National Archaeological Museum in Naples Italy or, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli in Italian, has an amazing mosaic collection including a number of important mosaics recovered from the ruins of Pompeii.  You can find info on their website under Routes & Collections > Rooms & Exhibition Spaces > Mosaics.  This includes the Alexander Mosaic, which depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia.
The Great Palace Mosaic Museum in Istanbul, Turkey exhibits magnificent mosaics dated to 450-550 AD.  You can learn more on the Go Turkey Tourism website.
I’d highly recommend Studio Cassio where I attended the Roman Mosaic Workshop in Rome, Italy.  More information is available on the Studio Cassio website or under Things To Do in Rome on TripAdvisor.

Today’s Takeaways

1. Mosaics have a long and rich history.
2. Consider attending a workshop relevant to your travel destination.
3. Evaluate the work of experts in an art form or media that interests you.