The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1891-04-16
MAKING MOSAICS.
beautiful Pictures Made Of Differ
ent Colored Glasses.
Interesting Information Concerning an
Art of Which But Little Is known
Important improvements
Recently Made.

been in the art of working in glass
mosaic, says the Pail Mall Gazette, as
they have reproduced in this method
Holman Hunts picture of "Christ
Among the Doctors" which many
people may remember in the old Water
Color .7ociety's exhibition in 1887. The
mosaic, about eight feet wide and four
feet high, was made for the reredos of
Clifton college chapel. Few people
have the slightest idea of how mosaic
is made.
'0The art of working In mosaic, the
most imperishablc OF wall decorations,
was known to the Romans" said Mr..
Powell, superintendent of the manu-
factory, land has been revived and
practiced at various times. Thus there
was revival in Raphael's time, and
Titan also made designs for mosaic. In
our own day it has been revived by
Salviati. IN Venice, and 1t has been
practiced in the vatican and at st.
Peters in Rome under the present and
former pope for the purpose of repro
ducing the works Of the old masters in
an imperishable form. Most of the work
done in this country and on the con-
tinent for the Last quarter Of q century
has been by Salviatl
"For instance, the designs of Alfred
Stevens for the spandrels in the dome
OF st. Pauls are carried out by him and
were executed in Venice. We have
been working at mosaic for about ten
years and have introduced some very
important improvements. We have,
moreover, trained all our own
craftsmen, and every part of the work,
from the making Of the glass to the
completion of the picture, is done by
highly skilled English craftsmen"
"You must begin at the beginning
and see the glass made" said Mr..
Powell, leading the way into the work.
shop ''But first let me show you
what the old method was. This" show
ing me piece of Opaque colored glass,
piece of glass such as is used in Venice.
1t is made by taking big drop Of
molten glass and pressing it out flat
to about quarter of s,n inch in thick
ness. These are made in every color
They are cut into little cubes and ar
ranged to form the design, and it is the
cut face which forms the picture sur
face. The disadvantages are the dis
agreeable glitter Of the glass and the
difficulty of shaping the pieces"
"And the now method?" I was shown
the maker Of the glass at work. The
workman has a shallow mold into
which he Sits from the perforated bot
tom Of tin Jug colored powder.
From another jug he sits another thick
ness of white powder and then a con-
siderable thickness Of coarser powder,
making altogether about quarter Of
an inch. These powders are ground
glass and are fused by the heat Of tho
fire into solid tile The first powder
Is of the color the glass is intended to
be, the second is white, to give quality
to the surface color and to resist damp,
and the third is simply backing of
ness.
The tile is then cut up into little
| pieces with steel American wheel into
| the shapes required. "The advantage" "
continued Mr.. Powell, "besides the su-
perior color is that we use the surface
instead of the cut edge Of the tile for
the picture, and so we can cut any
shape we require. Thus, as in Holman
Hunts picture, we can cut pieces into
the shape OF thunb-nail, or Of a nos
tril, or Of parts of an eye, or Of any OF
the little bits Of drawing which. 90 to
make mp a picture. In the old way
these things would have to be made up
of little cubes, and Of course the shapes
would not have been nearly so accurate.
BY our method we are enabled to ap-
proach much nearer TO pictorial effect
quite as near as il desirable in this
class Of decoration"
"And the putting of the pieces to-
getherT'
"There are several ways. The most
obvious is to cement the glass piece by
piece upon the stoncwork. But that
makes very uneven work and 1t is diff
we actually practice are two-namcly,
face down and face up The former
is used for decorative panels and the
latter for important work like pictures.
The method is this: We have tracing
made of, say, head, which tracing is
pasted down on plate of glass. The
little pieces of mosaic are then, after
much careful selection and cutting, put
down upon their places on the tracing
and fixed with weak cement, and so, bit
by bit, the whole is made up.
"The advantage is that we see what
we are doing as we go on and that al
terations are easily made. When the
work is finished in this way it is ready
for transferring permanently to the
stone wall or to slab of slate. This
is easily done. We take piece Of linen,
such as architects use for tracing, and
cement it oil over the face of tho pieces
of glass. When this is hard the linen
with all the pieces Of mosaic is stripped
of the glass plate. The slab Of slate or
the wall is then prepared with cement,
upon which the mosaic, held together
by the linen, is pressed and left to
harden. The linen is then washed off
and the finished mosaic exposed to
view. And this is how a glass mosaic
Is made"
NIonSy In False Teeth.