THE EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO UTILIZING NATURAL COASTAL MATERIALS IN ANCIENT AND MODERN MURAL PAINTING

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant lecturer in the Photography Department - Mural Photography Division Faculty of Fine Arts - Mansoura University

Abstract

Coastal natural materials have been used in mosaic works since the very beginnings of this art and have passed through stages of experimentation and technical employment throughout the ages until our contemporary time. Floor mosaics in the Greek era were linked to the material of pebbles and passed through technical stages that ranged from simplicity of design to high degrees of technical employment in recording mythological and everyday themes. The early stages in the history of wall mosaics were also linked to natural coastal materials. Shells and volcanic rocks were used extensively to create complete cladding for the walls and ceilings of Roman caves and rest houses, and it was known as “Nymphaeum.”
This tradition of using coastal materials continued to completely cover the walls of artificial caves that humans had built underground, and some rooms in the homes of the wealthy. It reached its peak in the eighteenth century, and the wonderful ones served as an exhibition that received visitors, so these buildings appear from the outside in a rural style. Simple and rough, but from the inside it receives its visitors with patterns of seashell designs covering all surfaces from floor to ceiling.
The compatibility of natural materials in expressing the content of the essence of nature and cosmic systems is evident in contemporary mosaics, as they resonate with familiarity within us, which may be due to the abstraction used in these works extracting the essential contents from the vocabulary of nature, which is based on movement and permanence. The special fabric of these works is connected to the kinetic and rhythmic systems in nature and expresses the philosophical vision and conscious intellectual background of the production of previous civilizations.

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