At the beginning of the Eighties, Paolo Portoghesi succeeded
in defining in a univocal manner the paradoxical and irritating
word that is postmodernism. Rather a redefinition than a new
label, his work was born from dissatisfaction with both previous
comparisons as with the jumble of heterogenous objects thrown
together under the modernist label. His new definition finally gave
us the possibility of putting together and contrasting different
elements. Postmodernism is seen as a break, refusal, negation
more than as the beginning of a new steering course. Very
many these days are no longer interested in ageing modernism
bequeathed to us by the Twenties’ movement with the precise
and rigid set of rules imbeded in a golden book that cannot be
disregarded. In that book were censured and treated as capital
sins all superfluous ornaments to everyday household goods, the
ornaments being themselves to blame.
The conviction that only what was useful could be pretty proved
to be one of the greatest and most dangerous utopias of the
rational age which started with a speech by Adolf Loos in which
he condemned all types of ornaments. Today, at last, ornaments
are back in favour, though not superflous decorations that weigh
down functional objects with useless decorations. The flavour of
the day is for an ornamentation that is both authentic and efficient
in rendering everyday objects more pleasing and converting
others: - as for example a table - into works of art without which
such objects would be but ordinary without life or fascination. And
mosaics carry out just that, helping save traditional ornamentation,
shuffling the cards to produce more than attractive results. The
rigid rules that constrained mosaic creation for so long have
finally fallen - mosaic has broken free from the its historical
obsession with the picturesque and architectural - it can now finally
put its essential qualities at the service of designers and creators.
Firstly a mosaic whatever the chosen design and in whatever way
on defines it is primarily a work of art for private as opposed to
public life. It belongs to that area of one’s private life best define
by the Anglosaxons as privacy with its sociological implications,
to one’s inner self: it is the center of a living space with a human
dimension full of objects for one’s own daily comfort. From its
inception, the mosaic is meant to become part of one’s family
life. The first known examples of floors, which date back to VIIIth
Century BC in Asia Minor, are multicolored mosaics which are of
the shape and design of carpets which are known to have been
weaved at the time. Compared to bare earth, mosaics had a
great advantage in that they could be swept or washed. One of
the words for mosaics in Greek says just that.
One of mosaics’ other qualities, present from the very conception
of the first mosaics and throughout its history is the easy
adaptation of fashionable materials to its realization. The oldest
mosaics of Asia Minor and Greece were made of small round
stone gathered in river beds, chosen for their color and variety,
a technic later on used by the Venezia artists, and known as the
“Venitian way”. Taking objects from their natural environment
and subverting their primary functions, the mosaic artist as well
as the designer invent new combinations and strive to create
decorations appropriate in a domestic context. In essence,
one can say that mosaic is the art of juxtaposition, and that in
juxtaposition it has found its true fulfilment. Of course, economic
conditions can change and the materials used can change from
the most precious to the most ordinary, but the arch principle of
“adaptation” remains the same.
The worlds of mosaics and general design are not far apart: the
complex human dimention created by the unique relationship
between commissioner and executioner of any work of art is
always present in a mosaic and represents yet one more of its
qualities. Whatever one chooses to have made, notwithstanding the
humanistic preoccupations present in every project, the mosaic and
its design give birth and are the expression of a privileged taste, an
intimate circle, an elitist fashion. The fashion for seashell mosaics
found in the baroque atmosphere of the reign of Emperor Nero the
natural humus for its great expansion when the bourgeois of Pompei
copied the court’s splendours, reproducing the main villas used by
the Emperor’s court in the bay of Naples. And the story continues
through time, promoting the taste for new aesthetics, up to the
incredible censure of the beginning of the Twentieth Century. And we
had to wait for postmodernist freedom to allow the complicity between
a commissioner and an executor to be exhibited without restrain as a
value once more: to put it simply, it is a question of changing tastes and
fashions. In the words of Plinio The Old, who, impassive, commented:
floors originated in Greece and were embellished with works of
art similar to paintings though paintings were never substituted for
mosaics. The reception rooms in houses received more beautiful and
more costly mosaics than other rooms as they were meant to be seen
and admired by guests whenever one entertained.
MOSAIC
RUGS
