Smalti

Posted on January 21st, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

My smalti glass arrived yesterday. I couldn’t wait to play with it, but I put it off until the kids were in bed and the house was decent.

Encyclopedia of Mosaic Techniques:

Smalti:
This is the material in which Byzantine mosaic were made. It is produced in cakes, often about 12 in. in diameter and is cut down from these into rectangular tesserae about 1/3 in thick and about 2/3 in long. Smalti is enameled glass and has enormous intensity of color. It is very expensive and not particularly easy to use. The glass is pitted with little holes and is traditionally left ungrouted because the holes fill up with grout, muting the vibrancy of color.

I did not get the traditional cut of smalti. I saved about 30% by ordering 2 in x 2 in cakes of smalti. Then I cut these down to size. This is not easy. I really need to get the appropriate tools (i.e. hammer and hardie), but these are completly out of my price range right now. I’m looking for used ones. For now, I’m cutting with my wheeled cutters - which does work, but it is hard on my hands.

Smalti is so beautiful when mosaiked. It doesn’t require grouting (hurray!), but isn’t always the easiest material to work with, as you need to precisely fit pieces together. Because there isn’t grout, it is possible to get a great amount of detail into smalti work. Last night, I completed a birch tree and part of a sky… wish I could post pictures, but ever since we got back from Christmas, I haven’t been able to find our camera cord to connect to the computer.

This mosaic can be found in the Wits End Mosaic gallery

The majority of the tesserae in this piece is smalti

My smalti work is a little more irregular than this piece. I don’t cut all of my smalti in to rectangular pieces. I like the effect of different textures and height of individual pieces.

1 comment.