It may not be altogether foreign to the subject briefly to consider the united power of geometric figures, in conjunction with colour, to produce the striking and beautiful effects which form so important a feature in Byzantine and Moresque mosaic (but particularly the former) specimens of art.
Fig. 42.
The base of Byzantine mosaic is principally the relation of the hexagon to the triangle, upon which base almost innumerable combinations have been constructed. These Byzantine mosaics are always extremely simple in structure, some being made up entirely of the triangle, others of stars either six or eight rayed, singly or enclosed in a hexagon or octagon placed at intervals, and united by the more simple figure of the triangle, which, arranged in groups, serve as connecting links from one to the other. The whole composition is rendered either sparkling or monotonous according to the employment of contrasted effects or a limited and uniform range of colour, and is admirably illustrative of how the uniformity of the geometric figure may be broken up and destroyed, its very character changed, indeed, according to the system of colouring adopted—an illustration still further confirmed by a study of the varied and evolved designs on a part of the encaustic pavement of the Byzantine Court at the Crystal Palace, which, described in shades of neutral tint throughout, upon a ground of the same colour, renders it difficult for the eye to detect any variation of pattern.
Fig. 43.
The specimens of Moresque mosaic with which we are acquainted differ somewhat in character from that which we have been considering. Based upon the square and its affinities, it is constructed mainly with reference to the ratios of eight, four, and twelve. It is less glittering in colour than the Byzantine, and attracts the eye more to masses than to fragments.
The figures of snow are nearly allied to the principles of these decorative styles of art, based as they are upon a system of angular geometry. We perceive, also, that the primitive base of the crystals is the leading figure of mosaic, founded, as most of it is, upon the hexagon and its combinations, though occasionally admitting, with great effect, the employment of the octagon. Thus they seem naturally suggestive of an extension of the forms common to mosaic, and may be the means of eliciting fresh combinations scarcely less beautiful than those transmitted to us from the past.