Mosaics

Archiválie mozaikářských dílen Ústředí uměleckých řemesel a n.p. Železnobrodské sklo se zachovaly jen torzálně. Proto jsou písemné prameny podniku Českého fondu výtvarných umění Dílo klíčovým zdrojem informací o vývoji mozaiky mezi 50. – 80. lety 20. století. Pro studii jsme využili především zápisy uměleckých komisí, které díla schvalovaly, a složky dokumentující jednotlivé realizace.  / The study presents one of the options available for research of modern mosaic. In the autumn of 2015, the database “Topographic Research of Exterior Glass Mosaics in the Czech Republic” was made available to the public – a professional map focusing on their occurrence and damage. Almost half of the three hundred documented works originated from the 1950’s to the 1980’s. The primary part of the research was the identification of the mosaics. During the research, this proved to be much easier for older objects than for works of the second half of the 20th century, for which nearly all the basic information was missing. For part of the research, a closer look at the system of orders for artistic works in socialist Czechoslovakia offered a suitable solution. We used the inventories of artistic realizations in the public space, published between 1972-1989 under the title “Cooperation between artist and architect; a survey of works”. These cyclotype documents are not complete, but they still capture a large part of mosaic production from 1972. Data on older works (from the mid-1950’s) have to be sought out in archival sources, especially on the activities of the Czech Fine Arts Fund (ČFVU).
The archives of the realization enterprises of the time – the mosaic workshops of the Center of Artistic Crafts and the Železnobrodské sklo national enterprise – were preserved only in fragments. The mosaics must therefore be followed not through their creation in workshops, but through reports concerning the authors of mosaic designs and the approval of their works in the Art Commissions of ČFVU. The Czech Fine Arts Fund was founded in 1954 and was also responsible for the organization of official artistic orders. This practical activity was addressed by the “Fine Art Service” and the company of the ČFVU named Dílo. Artistic realizations were approved by so-called (regional) artistic committees. They had different specializations, with mosaics approved in the Committees for cooperation between architect and artist. At the beginning of an order, the committee recommended or approved the artist or would announce a competition for the creation of the work. They assessed, commented, and approved the various degrees of workmanship (often in the workshops) and eventually approved them on the spot. In the ongoing steps, even after the completion of the order, the committee’s task was to approve the amount of the total fee and the distribution of payments for the individual phases of the work. During the negotiations, records of the meetings were produced which are now the basic written sources illustrating the creation of individual works. Entries are recorded in the record books or in typewritten descriptions. In addition, an important source of information are the folders for completed orders which include invoices, correspondence, and contracts with artists. Some works are documented in order portfolios which containing basic data on uniformly prepared cards containing the photo of the realization, the author’s name, the name of the work, location, material, dimensions, and information on the price, investor, and date of final approval.
In the text, we use examples from archival sources – the now extinct mosaic on the eastern facade of the Na Šalamounce kindergarten in Peroutkova Street in Prague was designated as a work by Jaroslav Moravec from 1965 entitled Sun and Bird. We also describe the details of the order for mosaic tiles of the ventilation chimneys of the Letenský tunnel, designed by Zdeněk Sýkora (1968-1969), made of a mosaic produced in Jablonec nad Nisou. The detail of the documentation of one contract is demonstrated in an example of the extinct mosaic by Karel Svolinský, the Tree of Life (1977) from the interior of the elementary school in the Jižní Svahy housing estate in Zlín.
Socialist mosaics were realized primarily in two workshops, their archive funds having been preserved only in fragments. The fund of the Center of Artistic Crafts, as it relates to mosaics, has stored only promotional materials and annual reports, or several books of clippings from published articles. Also incomplete is also the fund of the Železnobrodské sklo national enterprise, whose mosaic workshop, working within the building glass department, was one of the other large producers of mosaic of socialist Czechoslovakia. Only promotional materials of the company, the business magazines Sklář and Sklo, jewelry, and especially sets of newspaper clippings are available for the study of mosaic. A fragment of the archive fund of the Železnobrodské sklo national enterprise is also kept in the Municipal Museum in Železný Brod. In addition to several mosaic designs, it also contains remnants of writings (for the years 1966-1967 and 1971-1972). The Art Center of the Higher Industrial School of Glass in Železný Brod also dealt with mosaic production. Under the leadership of Jaroslav Brychta, the use of glass waste was tested and mosaic designs were created here. Some of them, along with Brychta’s notes, are deposited in his estate at the Municipal Museum in Železný Brod.

MOSAIC IN ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE
Immediately after Islam had emerged in the Arabian Peninsula in the first half of the seventh century, it expanded into a vast geographical area in the first 100 years. The generation of its own cultural identity, correspondingly its religious, political expansion and strength occurred in that period, as well. It is appreciated that a style to be characterized as Islamic Art originated in the architectural works of art which belonged particularly to the Umayyad authority with the impact and contribution of the ancient indigenous elements. That art was advanced in subsequent periods and gained a unique feature especially with the Seljuks. In this study, it is discussed that the mosaic technique, whose origins can be traced to antiquity and experienced an extensive process throughout the Middle East, was implemented in Islamic architecture, such as mosques, palaces, and tombs. It attempted to introduce that the practice of those mosaics was developed according to the principles of Islamic faith by means of calligraphic bands, floral and geometrical arrangements in the process from its beginning until the extension of tilemosaic and tile techniques.

The mosaic pavements in the House of Leukaktios in Ptolemais (Cyrenaica, Libya), newly discovered - by a Polish team from the University of Warsaw under the direction of T. Mikocki (1954-2007), have shed new light on the decoration of dining rooms in Ptolemais during the Roman period. It seems that in the principal triclinium of this house klinai were arranged in the Greek manner (according to E. Morvillez) and the second room, identified as an andron/triclinium, might have occasionally had klinai placed inside it. The authors propose to compare these
mosaics with pavement mosaics discovered in two others houses in Ptolemais: two in the Palazzo delle Colonne and three in the Roman Villa, both these structures having been excavated and published by Pesce and Kraeling in the 20th century.