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Glass tiles are pieces of glass formed into consistent shapes.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2015) |
Glass tiles are pieces of glass formed into consistent shapes.
Glass was used in mosaics as early as 2500 BC, but it was not until the 3rd century BC that innovative artisans in Greece, Persia, and India created glass tiles.
Whereas clay tile is dated as early as 8,000 BC, there were significant barriers to the development of glass tile, including the high temperatures required to melt glass and the complexities of annealing glass curves.
In recent years,[ when? ] glass tiles have become popular for both field tile and accent tiles. This trend can be attributed to recent technological breakthroughs,[ example needed ] as well as the tiles inherent properties; in particular, their potential to impart intense color, reflect light, and remain impervious to water.
Glass tile introduces complexities to the installer. Since glass is more rigid than ceramic or porcelain tile, glass tiles break more readily under the duress of substrate shifts. [1]
Smalti tile, sometimes referred to as Byzantine glass mosaic tile, is a typically opaque glass tile originally developed for use in mosaics created during the time of the Byzantine empire. [2]
Smalti is made by mixing molten glass with metal oxides for color in a furnace; the result is a cloudy mixture poured into flat slabs that are cooled and broken into individual pieces. The molten mixture can be topped with gold leaf, followed by a thin glass film to protect against tarnishing. During the Byzantine era, Constantinople became the center of the mosaic craft, and the use of gold leaf glass mosaic reached perhaps its greatest artistic expression in the former seat of the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia.
Traditional smalti tiles are still found today in many European churches and ornamental objects; the method is used by some present-day artisans, both in installations and fine art. In the 1920s, mass production methods were applied to Smalti tile manufacturing, which enabled these tiles to find their way into many middle-class homes. Instead of the old method of rolling the colored glass mixture out, cooling, and cutting, the new method called for molten liquid to be poured and cooled in trays, usually resulting in 3/4 inch chicklet-type pieces.
Since the 1990s, a variety of modern glass tile technologies, including methods to take used glass and recreate it as ' green' tiles, has resulted in a resurgence of interest in glass tile as a floor and wall cladding. It is now most commonly used in pools, kitchens, spas, and bathrooms. Although Smalti tile remains popular, small and large format glass products are now commonly formed using cast and fused glass methods. The plasticity of these last two methods has resulted in a wide variety of looks and applications, including floor tiles. [3]
In the late 1990s, special glass tiles were coated on the back side with a receptive white coating. This has allowed impregnation of heat-transfer dyes by a printing process reproducing high resolution pictures and designs. Custom printed glass tile and glass tile murals exhibit the toughness of glass on the wearing surface with photo-like pictures. These are especially practical in kitchens and showers, where cleanser and moisture resistance are important.
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly popular in the Ancient Roman world.
Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder, polymeric, or a combination of both. Metal strips often divide sections, or changes in color or material in a pattern. Additional chips may be sprinkled atop the mix before it sets. After it is cured it is ground and polished smooth or otherwise finished to produce a uniformly textured surface. "Terrazzo" is also often used to describe any pattern similar to the original terrazzo floors.
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe. A person who blows glass is called a glassblower, glassmith, or gaffer. A lampworker manipulates glass with the use of a torch on a smaller scale, such as in producing precision laboratory glassware out of borosilicate glass.
Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or other objects such as tabletops. Alternatively, tile can sometimes refer to similar units made from lightweight materials such as perlite, wood, and mineral wool, typically used for wall and ceiling applications. In another sense, a tile is a construction tile or similar object, such as rectangular counters used in playing games. The word is derived from the French word tuile, which is, in turn, from the Latin word tegula, meaning a roof tile composed of fired clay.
Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal, wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was traditionally silver in the West, to make silver-gilt objects, but gilt-bronze is commonly used in China, and also called ormolu if it is Western. Methods of gilding include hand application and gluing, typically of gold leaf, chemical gilding, and electroplating, the last also called gold plating. Parcel-gilt objects are only gilded over part of their surfaces. This may mean that all of the inside, and none of the outside, of a chalice or similar vessel is gilded, or that patterns or images are made up by using a combination of gilt and ungilted areas.
Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects with colored material held in place or separated by metal strips or wire, normally of gold. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, but inlays of cut gemstones, glass and other materials were also used during older periods; indeed cloisonné enamel very probably began as an easier imitation of cloisonné work using gems. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments to the metal object by soldering or affixing silver or gold as wires or thin strips placed on their edges. These remain visible in the finished piece, separating the different compartments of the enamel or inlays, which are often of several colors. Cloisonné enamel objects are worked on with enamel powder made into a paste, which then needs to be fired in a kiln. If gemstones or colored glass are used, the pieces need to be cut or ground into the shape of each cloison.
A tessera is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a square, used in creating a mosaic. It is also known as an abaciscus or abaculus.
Trencadís, also known as pique assiette, broken tile mosaics, bits and pieces, memoryware, and shardware, is a type of mosaic made from cemented-together tile shards and broken chinaware. Glazed china tends to be preferred, and glass is sometimes mixed in as well, as are other small materials like buttons and shells. Artists working in this form may create random designs, pictorial scenes, geometric patterns, or a hybrid of any of these.
Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets by a process known as goldbeating, for use in gilding.
Ceramic glaze, or simply glaze, is a glassy coating on ceramics. It is used for decoration, to ensure the item is impermeable to liquids and to minimise the adherence of pollutants.
Micromosaics are a special form of mosaic that uses unusually small mosaic pieces (tesserae) of glass, or in later Italian pieces an enamel-like material, to make small figurative images. Surviving ancient Roman mosaics include some very finely worked panels using very small tesserae, especially from Pompeii, but only from Byzantine art are there mosaic icons in micromosaic with tesserae as small as the best from the Modern period. Byzantine examples, which are very rare, were religious icons. They are usually framed and treated like portable paintings.
The Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, known in Turkish as the Tekfur Sarayı, is a late 13th-century Byzantine palace in the north-western part of the old city of Constantinople. An annex of the greater palace complex of Blachernae, it is the best preserved of the three Byzantine palaces to survive in the city, and one of the few relatively intact examples of late Byzantine secular architecture in the world.
A cupola or cupola furnace is a melting device used in foundries that can be used to melt cast iron, Ni-resist iron and some bronzes. The cupola can be made almost any practical size. The size of a cupola is expressed in diameters and can range from 1.5 to 13 feet. The overall shape is cylindrical and the equipment is arranged vertically, usually supported by four legs. The overall look is similar to a large smokestack.
Roman glass objects have been recovered across the Roman Empire in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts. Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles and window glass were also produced. Roman glass production developed from Hellenistic technical traditions, initially concentrating on the production of intensely coloured cast glass vessels. However, during the 1st century AD the industry underwent rapid technical growth that saw the introduction of glass blowing and the dominance of colourless or 'aqua' glasses. Production of raw glass was undertaken in geographically separate locations to the working of glass into finished vessels, and by the end of the 1st century AD large scale manufacturing resulted in the establishment of glass as a commonly available material in the Roman world, and one which also had technically very difficult specialized types of luxury glass, which must have been very expensive.
Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process. Casting materials are usually metals or various time setting materials that cure after mixing two or more components together; examples are epoxy, concrete, plaster and clay. Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be otherwise difficult or uneconomical to make by other methods. Heavy equipment like machine tool beds, ships' propellers, etc. can be cast easily in the required size, rather than fabricating by joining several small pieces. Casting is a 7,000-year-old process. The oldest surviving casting is a copper frog from 3200 BC.
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take varied forms, including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is a visual art. While some ceramics are considered fine art, such as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramic art can be created by one person or by a group, in a pottery or a ceramic factory with a group designing and manufacturing the artware.
Byzantine mosaics are mosaics produced from the 4th to 15th centuries in and under the influence of the Byzantine Empire. Mosaics were some of the most popular and historically significant art forms produced in the empire, and they are still studied extensively by art historians. Although Byzantine mosaics evolved out of earlier Hellenistic and Roman practices and styles, craftspeople within the Byzantine Empire made important technical advances and developed mosaic art into a unique and powerful form of personal and religious expression that exerted significant influence on Islamic art produced in Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and the Ottoman Empire.
Camille Antoine Arnoux Solon (1877–1960) was a British muralist and ceramist of French descent. He was born in Staffordshire, England to French parents. In his 30s he emigrated to the US, where he worked with architect Julia Morgan, painting murals and designing tile work for Hearst Castle, William Randolph Hearst's estate at San Simeon, California.
Gold ground or gold-ground (adjective) is a term in art history for a style of images with all or most of the background in a solid gold colour. Historically, real gold leaf has normally been used, giving a luxurious appearance. The style has been used in several periods and places, but is especially associated with Byzantine and medieval art in mosaic, illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings, where it was for many centuries the dominant style for some types of images, such as icons. For three-dimensional objects, the term is gilded or gold-plated.
Belcher mosaic windows were manufactured in the United States by the Belcher Mosaic Glass Company between 1884 and 1897. Identifiable by their unique, continuous lead matrix and use of small, glass tesserae, Belcher windows are an example of the innovation occurring in decorative glass during the nineteenth century. Also referred to as “mercury mosaics” or “metallo mosaics”, Belcher windows echo many of the larger concepts at play in American architecture during the end of the 1800s including an emphasis on the inherent nature of the material to impart design and a capitalization of developments in technology to create more affordable decorative objects. While their era of production was short lived, Belcher windows were popular and many examples still survive today, both in situ but more likely in collections.
