The Materiality of Light: The Choices in the Making of Glass Mosaics

Résumé En

To gauge the aesthetic value of mosaics, we need to understand the artistic medium and the choices in making them. Glass was produced in only a few places during the 1st millennium CE and required long-distance trade, but the large scale of produc-tion suggests that glass was not a particularly precious material. The production of colored glass is another matter, as it may require special technological know-how and access to rare colorants. The presence or absence of certain colors may thus be the result of economic considerations, whereas the selective use of colors could be an aesthetic choice. I will look at examples of how the light-bearing qualities of glass tesserae were exploited in Byzantine art.