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Mosaic tile benefits & drawbacks
Mosaic tiles can be used as a decorative building stone, because it can easily be worked and cut into tesserae. The colors of these tiles are rich and offer the artist many possibilities to achieve dynamic mosaic works of art. These tiles are less than six inches facial area and can either be porcelain or natural clay composition and usually are 3/8" or less in thickness. The most common style today in floor and wall tiles, as well as for residential and commercial applications are the ones that are glazed. What they do is that they apply a liquid glass to the body of the tile and they fire at high temperatures. The end result of glazing is a hard and non-porous flooring that is stain, scratch, fire and slip resistant, doesn't fade from sunlight and very easy to clean. Tiles have important characteristics that we need to identify and consider, tile density and moisture absorption. We should take note that as the weight or the density increase it becomes a stronger tile. In terms of moisture absorption, as the density increases the amount of moisture that a tile can absorb becomes less. It is a fact that tile density and moisture absorption have an indirect relationship to each other. What happens is that as the density of the tile increases the moisture absorption rate becomes less. This is the main reason why tile density and moisture absorption are important to understand when selecting the tiles for different applications. Mosaic tiles are hard porcelain or glass, glazed or unglazed - mounted on a backing for easy installation. More often mosaic tiles are used to create designs for walls and floors. Tile flooring, walls, or countertops are installed over a solid base that creates an extremely hard and durable surfaces that will serve for many years with little maintenance other than cleaning. Tile can be installed with an adhesive, and space between the tiles is filled with grout. Tile mosaic decoration has been highly developed in Anatolia during the Seljuk period. This is a complex and visually diversified technique, which are generally applied to such interior surfaces like domes, squinches, arches, panels and mihrabs. Tiles that are in turquoise, and less frequently in purple, cobalt blue and black glazes were cut to the required shape in order to form a decorative composition. Tile mosaic is a highly versatile technique. It is used to produce closely interwoven designs on both flat and curved surfaces, or on angular and curved scriptural and foliate friezes. The Anatolian Seljuks introduced tile mosaic mihrabs. Simpler and more geometric designs were common during those times. The richest and most interesting tiles from Seljuk palaces were found in the Kubadabad palace along the Beypehir lakeside. These figural tiles are mostly decorated with depictions of the sultan, women of the harem, courtiers and servants. The most interesting figures though are the hunting and imaginery animals. It includes the sphinx, siren, single and double-headed eagles, single and paired peacocks, paired birds on the tree of life and a dragon that create an unreal world. These constitute symbolic representations of the rich figural world of the Seljuks. Mosaics are designs or pictures that can be created by embedding small pieces of glass, stone, terracotta into a bed of cement or other form of fixative. This form of decoration is mostly used for panels or on floors, but it is highly effective on curved surfaces, such as ceilings and vaults. Mosaics can be found both indoors and outdoors. The art of mosaic has been practiced for thousands of years; the Greeks, who then passed their skills on to the Romans, invented it. A lot of ancient mosaics have survived the ravages of time remarkably well, there are early mosaics that can be traced way back four to three thousand years BC. These basic mosaics, which are mainly found in Mesopotamia, consist of thin cones of clay, baked and then painted. These slim cones were then pushed into mud walls to offer some protection and decoration. Modern developments in materials and techniques are clear evidence that mosaic is still very much alive as we approach the millennium. Mosaic tiles « « Benefits & drawbacks |
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