Nuances of color were, however, equally important qualities of glass--appreciated and exploited with finesse by glass-makers in the Roman period. One technique of great versatility in its applications was fused mosaic work or millefiori , which is an Italian word meaning "1000 flowers." Essentially this technique involves the fusing of colored strips of glass into a rod from which slices can be cut which will present on their sliced surfaces the section-pattern of the fused colors of the rod. These slices of patterned glass were used decoratively as inlays; and they were also fused into the glass matrices of beads and vessels to form overall patterns against a dark ground.

Sometimes vessels and wall inlays were created using the millefiori method but placing the various colored and patterned elements in figural compositions. Elaborate landscape effects were achieved to the extent that it is sometimes difficult to remember that these designs were executed in fused glass rather than in paint. Interestingly, one vessel fragment preserves a section of a mosaic glass landscape of birds among branches and flowers which is very reminiscent of a Dynastic Egyptian vignette of birds in an acacia tree seen, for instance, in the Middle Kingdom tomb painting of Khnemhotpe.

There were many variations on the concept of fused mosaic glass. Gold-band glass was a luxury ware in which gold leaf and swirls of colored glass were fused within a sandwich of colorless glass. Emerging out of the tradition was the technique of gold glass -- where figural representations in gold leaf were sandwiched in colorless glass. This method of decoration was used effectively in the late Roman period for the embellishment of cup tondos.

These tondos have been preserved as detached elements because their owners broke them away from the surrounding cup walls in order to imbed them in the walls of the catacombs as funerary emblems. The appeal of the gold-glass tondos for this purpose lay in the fact that they were comissioned pieces, often including a representation of the owner and an inscription giving his or her name or a salutation. Many of these gold-glass tondos supply important material for the study of the iconography of Judaism and Christianity in the first half of the first millennium A.D.

In addition to the traditions of coloristic effects which relied on the fusion of variously colored glasses, the glass-makers of Roman times also developed the technique of enamel painting onto the surface of glass vessels.

The coloristic potentials of glass determined its great popularity for special decorative uses. Fused mosaic glass of marble-like or figural patterns was employed, for instance, to adorn the surfaces of walls and furniture. When Pliny describes the Theater of Scaurus, built in 58 B.C. -- where the second story of the stage building was faced with glass -- he is probably alluding to mosaic glass made to imitate the swirling grains of marble (Natural History XXXV.24). Mosaic glass in bold patterns seems to have been used throughout the Empire period to decorate walls. Figural inlays of mosaic glass also decorated walls and furnishings.

Colorful opaque inlays for opus sectile mosaic were created from pre-formed shapes fitted together. Glass also came to be used in place of marble for tessera mosaics laid on floors, walls, and vaulted ceilings. The advantage of glass tesserae over marble one rested primarily with their consistently glittery quality and their range of colors, which could be produced on demand. According to Pliny, glass mosaic for walls and ceilings was introduced at Rome in the late first century B.C.

上一页  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] 下一页