Harking Back to Ancient Mosaics

Mosaic art is a rather interesting art form. Although it falls into the realm of craft due to the construction component, it is more like painting in the way form and imagery are created by choosing individual color, shapes and/or texture for each point of the surface it is created on. It takes both 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional design considerations with the results having a very unique texture that spans both. Polymer is not that dissimilar. We work in 3-dimensions but often focus on surface design. So it’s no wonder that some clayers are heavily inspired by mosaics.

The pendant below is a kind of crossover between polymer and mosaics. Barbara Sperling doesn’t actually create a mosaic but the canes and textures give you the sense that it is mosaic art. If you think about it, building imagery for canes works very much the same way as mosaics, choosing colors and shapes for each point of the image.

Barbara also chooses colors and foils that hark back to the ancient mosaics seen on old Roman and Greek floors and columns. It is the combination of elements here that make this appear to be so much like ancient mosaic work, a synergistic gathering of color, texture and imagery.

Barbara has many more examples of this kind of work on her website here.