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TERM 3 GRADE 7

Visual Literacy

MOSAIC

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of coloured glass,

stone, or other materials. The word mosaic is from the Italian mosaic, derived from the Latin

mosaicus and ultimately from the Greek mouseios meaning

belonging to the Muses, hence artistic.

Mosaic has a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the 3rd

millennium B.C. The earliest known examples of mosaics

made of different materials were found at a Temple building in

Abra, Mesopotamia.

Greek figural mosaics were enthusiastically adopted by the Romans to enrich the floors of

their Hellenistic villas and Roman dwellings from Britain to Dura-Europos. In 1913 the Zliten

2 mosaic, a Roman mosaic famous for its many scenes from gladiatorial contests, hunting and

everyday life, was discovered in the Libyan town of Zliten.

Mosaic was widely used on religious buildings and palaces in early Islamic

art, including Islam’s first great religious building, the Dome of the Rock in

Jerusalem, and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The Dome of the Rock was built between 688 and 692 and decorated with glass mosaics

which glitters and sparkles in the sun. The craftsmen followed in the

tradition of Byzantine work.

With the building of Christian basilicas in the late 4th century, wall and

ceiling mosaics were adopted for Christian uses. There was a mosaic

pavement depicting humans, animals and plants in the cathedral of

Aquileia (a late medieval church). Mosaics were more central to

Byzantine culture than that of Western Europe. Byzantine church

interiors were generally covered with golden mosaics. The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is a truly classical example of Byzantine

artwork. It was created during the 14th century.

The single most important piece of Byzantine Christian mosaic art in the East is the Madaba Map, made between 542 and 570 as the floor of the church of Saint George at Madaba,

Jordan. The map is the oldest surviving cartographic depiction of the Holy Land. Under

3 Roman and Byzantine influence Jews also decorated their synagogues with classical floor

mosaics. A zodiac mosaic decorated the floor of the Beit Alfa synagogue. Each of the three

panels depicts a scene – the Holy Ark, the zodiac and the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. In the

centre of the zodiac is Helios, the sun god, in his chariot. The four women in the corners

represent the four seasons.

Mosaics have developed into a popular craft

and art. While ancient mosaics tended to be

architectural, modern mosaics are found

covering everything from park benches and

flowerpots to guitars and bicycles. The

materials commonly used are marbles or other

stone, glass, pottery, mirror or foil-backed

glass, or shells. The artist M.C. Escher was

influenced by Moorish mosaics.

A mosaic is digital imaging. Recent developments in digital image processing have led to the

ability to design physical tile mosaics using computer aided designs (CAD) software.

Production can be greater than 10 times faster with higher accuracy.

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CREATE IN 2D: The Visual Language

Artists use the art elements and design principles in their work to communicate messages

and meaning to the viewer. An example of this is the artwork of Nelson Mandela. He

produced a series of lithographs when he was in prison on Robben Island. These show

scenes such as the view from his prison window, the courtyard where he tried to grow

flowers, the guard tower with barbed wire, the hospital, the lighthouse, the harbor, where

prisoners were offloaded, and the church that prisoners were not allowed to attend. The

artwork is a reminder of a painful time in his life, but he used bright colours in the pictures, as

symbols of hope and something positive. He

also made charcoal drawings and used

pastel colours on some areas only.

Using one of Nelson Mandela’s artworks, let

us recap on art elements and design

principles.

5 What is a lithograph? A lithograph is made with a flat-surface printing method using limestone block or a metal

plate. It is based on the idea that grease pushes away water. Artists draw a design on a plate

using special greasy crayons and then cover it with water and ink. The greasy part absorbs

the ink and the wet do not.

CREATING THE ILLUSION OF SPACE ON A 2D SURFACE: Linear Perspective

A painter works on a flat surface. The image the painter creates is not a real object, person or

landscape. He creates the illusion of space. Before the Renaissance, artists did not

understand how to create the illusion of space on a flat surface. Their landscape paintings

looked flat, like the backdrop of a stage set.

During the Renaissance, the artists devised a clever system to make their paintings and

drawings look more realistic. This mathematical system is called linear perspective. They

discovered that all the parallel lines converge and meet at a specific point on the horizon.

This is called the vanishing point.

6 Look at the road the next time you drive through a landscape. It seems to get narrower and

disappear on the horizon.

An artist uses perspective in a painting to tell people how big or small things are. This is

called proportion. A large building we see in the distance looks very small, although we know

it is quite big.

BUILDINGS AS WORKS OF ART

Everywhere we go, buildings surround us. Buildings supply shelter for human beings. An

architect is a person who plans buildings that people like to look at and are comfortable to

live in. Architects transform a shelter into a work of art.

There are 2 main types of buildings. The one is private and it is usually a dwelling or a house,

and the other is public such as a bank, library or a church. Ancient cities were made up of

houses, temples and palaces that were built from clay bricks. The Romans invented concrete.

Concrete is still used today. After the Industrial Revolution new materials became available to

the architects; steel, large sheets of glass and reinforced concrete made it possible to build

tall skyscrapers.

7 Houses tell a lot about how we live, our relationships with others in our family and

neighbourhood, our beliefs, the work we do and our hopes and dreams. The so-called Cape Malay homes in the Bo-Kaap express the cultural richness brought to the Cape by slaves in

the 17th and 18th century. Bright colours and decorative elements hark back to exotic places

like Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Java. Neighbours lived in harmony, side by side, and still

do so today.

The mud walls of Francina Ndimande’s house are covered

by murals that are examples of the Ndbele culture. The

decorations on each home are highly individual and

symbolic. These show the skill of the mother in the home

who passes her knowledge down to her daughter.

The Johannesburg Stadium (FNB Stadium), with a

capacity of 94,000, was refurbished for the 2010

Soccer World Cup. One of the recent additions to the

stadium is the outer cladding made of ceramic

concrete tiles. These tiles keep heat down to a

minimum, while their sandy colours help this massive

bulging structure, nicknamed the ‘Calabash’, to blend

with the landscape.

8 Both the skyscrapers and the stadium are public buildings, but architects have designed them

for different purposes. In the skyscraper, people are packed into their offices, taking up as

little space as possible. As they take up little space on the ground, skyscrapers are often built

in the city centre where buildings are crowded together.

COLLAGE

What is a collage? It comes from the French word ‘coller’ meaning to glue. It is a kind of artwork and technique

in which different materials such as photographs, pieces of paper or fabric and found objects,

are glued onto paper, canvas or board.

Since ancient times, Japanese calligraphers wrote poems on

sheets of coloured paper that were glued onto a background

to form the image of a landscape filled with other small bits of

paper representing animals or birds.

In the 17th century in Germany, images of castles and animals

were made out of silk on parchment. Later, the author Hans

Christian Anderson made beautiful collages of fairies and

gnomes for little children. The collage technique was used by

many cultures and artists throughout the centuries.

It was the Cubist painter George Braque who first used collage

in modern art in 1911. He used letters in his painting ‘The Portuguese’.

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Pablo Picasso soon followed his example. He was more adventurous and for him there was

no limit to what he could use in a collage. These collages started to look like relief sculptures

rather than 2D paintings.

Sam Nhlengethwa is a South African artist who creates collages. He has been making art

since 1977. He makes collages that tell the viewer about life in South Africa. He cuts pictures

from magazines and sticks them in his composition. They show his environment and what it is

like to live in the townships.

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ACTIVITY AND ASSESSMENT

On an A4 paper, create a 3D Linear perspective street scene. Include in your buildings,

both private and public dwellings (see notes for information), as well as elements of nature.

Use COLLAGE techniques to complete your work including: Tiling of a roof; torn paper to

imitate trees and shrubs; texturing of the buildings and road (tar surfacing); tissue paper or

cotton wool for clouds.

MARKING CRITERIA: 5 marks for a clearly defined horizon and vanishing point as well as buildings graded to horizon

5 marks for the private and public buildings and nature elements

5 marks for the presence of colour and textural elements

5 marks for the satisfactory 3D effect produced through the combined elements

TOTAL MARKS: 20

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RUBRIC FOR 3D STREET SCENE

Criteria 5

Outstanding achievement

4 Substantial

achievement

3 Moderate

achievement

2 Elementary

achievement

1 Not

achieved

Horizon and

Vanishing Point

Horizon and

vanishing point very neat and

accurately drawn

While some errors

in accuracy are noted, the

drawing of the horizon and

vanishing point is neat

Errors noted in

the drawing of the buildings, etc. graded to the

horizon. Some errors in

neatness of elements noted

Errors in

accuracy and neatness of drawing are

noted. Horizon and

vanishing point is poorly achieved

Poorly drawn, with very little to no evidence of horizon and vanishing point

Buildings

and Nature

Captures the

essence of private and public buildings.

Excellent use of natural elements

to compliment this

Captures the

essence of private and public

buildings, but natural elements, while good, could better compliment

this

Errors in the capturing of

private and public buildings, with

natural elements used adequately

Either private or public building is represented, but

not both, and natural elements are haphazard

or missing

Buildings are incomplete and natural

elements are absent

Texture

and Colour

Interesting

textures and excellent use of

collage and colour

Textural elements are effective, but

some do not compliment the overall theme

Fair use of

texture, colour and collage work

Textural elements

appear to be an afterthought, and collage

gluing is untidy

No attempt at texture. Poorly

coloured in and collage is

absent

Overall Picture

All elements work very well together,

with light and shade used effectively to

create a 3D effect

All elements, for the most part,

work well together.

Use of light and shade create a

3D effect

While the light and shade of

some elements create a 3D effect, other

elements appear 2D and can be improved on

Evidence of light and shade, but

they do not achieve the required 3D

effect

No tonal

qualities are evident and the picture is

2D.

TOTAL:

20 MARKS