mosaics

An artist can make a picture without painting with colours with a brush. They can build up what is called a mosaic, they can make a stained-glass window, or a picture by enamelling.

The oldest of these ways is mosaic. A mosaic picture is one that is made by using small pieces of coloured stone, glass or pottery to build up a design. Children at the beach often decorate sandcastles by sticking coloured stones or seashells on them to make pictures or patterns this is the same as mosaic but instead of sand an artist would use wet cement or plaster.

The earliest mosaics were usually a picture set into a floor, although later ones maybe found on walls or ceilings of buildings too.

The floors of the early buildings must have been quite a problem for the people who built them. One of the ways around the difficulty would be to cover the surface of the floor with little stones and pieces of rock, set into the mud floor. It would not only make it wear much longer, but also make it loo...