St. Peter's Basilica, a Late
Renaissance church located within Vatican City in Rome, Italy, is one
of the largest churches in the world.
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It has been described as "the
greatest of all churches of Christendom" and one observer wrote:
"St Peter's Basilica is the reason why Rome is still the center
of the civilized world. For religious, historical, and architectural
reasons it by itself justifies a journey to Rome, and its interior
offers a palimpsest of artistic styles at their best..."
By Catholic tradition, the basilica is
the burial site Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus and
the first Pope and Bishop of Rome.
St Peters is the repository of amazing
work of art : sculptures, images...
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| The Transfiguration - Raphael |
Now, an interesting and little known fact about the images inside St Peter's is that all but one of them are mosaics executed in the "filato" technique.
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| Details of the Filato Work of the above Scene. |
Filati mosaics have been utilized since 1600 by
the Vatican studio to reproduce and replace the oil paintings in St
Peter’s Basilica which have deteriorated over the years due to
humidity.
The "Filato" technique was invented during the 15th century. Filato is made from smalti that is heated and stretched into thin
noodles. It is then cut in small pieces used as micro tesserae.
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| Filato rods |
The use of glass in mosaic allows for amazing colours, since we are now able to produce all nuances of colours by the filato technique, we are able to reproduce in mosaic all the most famous paintings.
Personally, if I admire the amazing beauty of such works, I am saddened by the fact that all the creativity is taken out of the mosaicist's work. Mosaic is just used for copying painting. In my opinion, it is unfortunate. By doing so one relegates mosaic to the status of a mere Craft rather than a full Art.
What do you think ? Agree, disagree ? Please leave your comments below !
If you enjoyed this post, you may want to
If
you are interested in purchasing one of my mosaics, would like to commission a special project or to simply discuss the
wonderful art of modern and ancient mosaics, please contact me by email at frederic.lecut@gmail.com or by phone at (334) 798 1639.
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