A Mosaic of Mosaics

A Mosaic of Mosaics

by Natalie Bloniarz

Natalie Bloniarz

Abstract

The paragraph should give a three to five sentence abstract about your entire London HUA experience including 1) a summary of the aims of your project, 2) your prior experience with humanities and arts courses and disciplines, and 3) your major takeaways from the experience. This can and should be very similar to the paragraph you use to summarize this milestone on your Profile Page. It should contain your main Objective, so be sure to clearly state a one-sentence statement that summarizes your main objective for this milestone such as "a comparison of the text of Medieval English choral music to that of the Baroque" or it may be a question such as "to what extent did religion influence Christopher Wren's sense of design?"

Introduction

I suggest you save this section for last. Describe the essence of this project. Cover what the project is and who cares in the first two sentences. Then cover what others have done like it, how your project is different. Discuss the extent to which your strategy for completing this project was new to you, or an extension of previous HUA experiences.

As you continue to think about your project milestones, reread the "Goals" narrative on defining project milestones from the HU2900 syllabus. Remember: the idea is to have equip your milestone with a really solid background and then some sort of "thing that you do". You'll need to add in some narrative to describe why you did the "thing that you did", which you'd probably want to do anyway. You can make it easy for your advisors to give you a high grade by ensuring that your project milestone work reflects careful, considerate, and comprehensive thought and effort in terms of your background review, and insightful, cumulative, and methodical approaches toward the creative components of your project milestone deliverables.

Section 1: Background

Now you're on your own! Your milestone must include a thorough and detailed background section with detailed subsections; if additional articles are required to be referenced in this background section, create those as well and link to them (the creation of all pages is tracked by the wiki site and attributed to your username). Remember to use rich multimedia whenever possible. Consult the Help page as needed! Remember, if you don't see an article on this site that is an integral part of your project, create it! Your entire page-creating/page-editing history factors into your overall grade.

History

Greek

Origins

There is not much known about the exact origins of mosaics in Greece, as examples of early mosaics have been traced back to Sumeria and the Middle East. Due to the shrouded nature of the origins of mosaics, the idea could have originated in Greece itself as a natural evolution of pavement techniques. Examples of simple mosaics have been found in Crete and Mycenae made with basic patterns, but after that there is a gap in the knowledge of Greek mosaics. The next known and studied form of mosaic in Greece are the pebble mosaics of the 6th and 7th centuries BC.

Pebble

Pebble mosaics began as just a simple flooring method of taking small, smooth stones and using them as pavement, but over time transitioned into a chance to create elaborate decorations. Evolving from plain flooring, the Greeks began to use more colorful pebbles, still lacking a pattern, but showing progression. The neighbors of Greece such as Assyria and Gordion may have influenced the progression of Greek mosaics, as they had patterned floor paved with pebbles that contained geometric shapes and repeating images. Based on the earliest known decorated mosaics dating to the 5th century BC found in Olynthos, this time period can be established as the beginning of decorated Greek pebble mosaics. The mosaics contain simple wave motifs and geometric shapes at Olynthos, though in other areas of Greece such as Corinth, basic mythological creatures have appeared in the mosaic. Many of these early mosaics were found in places of high wealth, such as temples and the homes of the rich, indicating that mosaics were valued higher than standard pavements and stood out as a luxury element. Moving forward in time to the 4th Century BC the detail in pebble mosaics has drastically increased, and artists are beginning to use other materials such as lead and terracotta, and more complex pebble usage, such as using smaller darker stones, to add shape and definition to the mosaics. Though the mosaics created in this period developed great detail and dimension, they are soon overtaken by Hellenistic mosaics.

Roman

Imperial

This will have a descriptive history of mosaics, of these two areas.

Techniques

Roman

Tesserae

This will discuss different techniques of creating mosaics.

Styles

Roman

Orientation

This will discuss distinctive elements of styles of mosaics.

Section 2: Deliverable

In this section, provide your contribution, creative element, assessment, or observation with regard to your background research. This could be a new derivative work based on previous research, or some parallel to other events. In this section, describe the relationship between your background review and your deliverable; make the connection between the two clear.

A Modern Mosaic

Here will be my created mosaic and a gallery of the images I used to create the mosaic.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About the Mosaic

This will describe the style of the mosaic that I have created and how I have used modern techniques and technology to emulate the creation of mosaics.

Conclusion

In this section, provide a summary or recap of your work, as well as potential areas of further inquiry (for yourself, future students, or other researchers).

References

• Dunbabin, K. (2012). Mosaics of the Greek and Roman world (1st ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Ling, R. (1998). Ancient mosaics (1st ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Rule, M. (1974). Floor mosaics in Roman Britain (1st ed.). London: Macmillan.
• Witts, P. (2010). Mosaics in Roman Britain (1st ed.). Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press.

External Links

If appropriate, add an external links section

Image Gallery

If appropriate, add an image gallery