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Reflections in Stone and Glass: An American Reinterprets the Art of Mosaic
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13215 |
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THE ARTS
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10 / 1987 |
1,585 Words |
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Jennifer Gibson
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In the unlikely, unromantic setting of suburban Silver Spring, Maryland, Jerry Williams Carter carries on a tradition begun many centuries ago, the art of mosaic. He has transformed this ancient art by combining modern technology with the use of fabled Venetian glass to create a blend of materials and form that spans the ages. His completed mosaics do not translate paintings into stone but are original works in themselves.
The word mosaic derives from the late Greek mouseios, belonging to the nine muses (those daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory), who each presided over a different art or science. A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces such as stone or glass in mortar, mosaic is one of the oldest and most durable forms of mural decoration and was in constant use from the earliest times up to about the thirteenth century. The remnants of Greek and Roman mosaic floors, the mosaics of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and the monuments of Ravenna inspire the contemporary viewer with an awe similar to that experienced by their original beholder - mosaic shining with undiminished freshness. We can still enter the dusky interior of a sixth-century church on the outskirts of Ravenna and, by the flicker of candlelight, see gold and innumerable colors playing across the walls. The reflecting, luminous tesserae (the small squares of stone or glass used to make the mosaic designs) shimmer in the darkened church.
Visionary Work
Instead of pagan and Christian images, Carter presents his personal vision of a universe shaped by space exploration and future technology. Like artists of the past, he speaks to man's soul. In works such as Life Disk, a cast-stone circle richly inlaid with gold, red, and green tesserae, he conveys his conviction that man inhabits a fragile planet. In Spacescape, a cast relief with a rich mosaic of split Venetian glass, he argues in artistic terms for responsible custodianship of Earth. He repeatedly draws on images of space, the planets, and signs of life in the vastness of the universe.
In an age when speed and change are the norm, mosaic embodies the opposite qualities. It requires careful planning since the tesserae are set permanently. A painter may repaint a portion of his canvas, adding a stroke here, changing a color there; a mosaicist cannot make such adjustments. A change in the design requires that he literally destory what has been done. The making of Carter's mosaics is laborious. Not only must the artist conceive the design, but he has to cut each of the tessera before setting them individually into mortar. The picture is slowly built from these myriad pieces of color.
The commitment to technique that mosaic demands has contributed to its post-Renaissance demotion from the ranks of high art. When Carter applied to graduate school in the fine arts, he was directed to the crafts department; the crafts faculty, in turn, told him that mosaic was a fine art. Carter was convinced that mosaic could once again be a vital modern art form. It is easy to forget that painting on canvas is only five hundred years old; mosaic has a long history and joining that lineage of successful mosaicists is, indeed, a significant achievement.
A native of Kansas, Carter was studying art in Europe when he decided to go to Ravenna, Italy, once the center of mosaic art in the
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