A visual experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination.
The materials used were also regulated and controlled by the guild. In contracts the use of certain pigments might be stipulated, and the substitution of others might lead to a fine. In fourteenth-century Florence, for instance, the use of ‘German blue’ instead of ultramarine, was prohibited.
The temperament and approach to his work of the painter today seems to be very much the same as that of the painter in the past. Patience, skill, and devotion were not a monopoly of the older masters, nor are haste and inferior workmanship the necessary characteristics of the moderns.
The artistic importance of these possible variations in the process used and the way it is used is not always fully realized. Each process has its own particular possibilities and limitations, so that some things can be done in terms of one that are difficult or impossible in another. consequently, according to the painter’s conception, to his temperament, and to his knowledge of and skill in handling a process, he will choose one rather than another, exploiting its special qualities, and accepting its defects.
All these considerations are of such importance because, without them, we cannot do justice to the greatest of the functional arts, the art of building, known as architecture. Since we could include a shed, a pig-sty or a prison (buildings no one will class as art) under the broad heading of architecture, we must ask ourselves what makes architecture an art.
Mosaic was a common type of decoration in Greece in the Late Hellenistic period and the name given to it, ‘Opus Alexandrinum’, points to Alexandria as a centre for the work. But few examples can be dated earlier than the Roman occupation. The Romans excelled in the art of floor mosaic; fragmentary examples are to be found wherever they established themselves, in France, England, Germany, Sicily and North Africa. A few wall mosaics were found at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Researchers from University College London (UCL) found that people who engaged in the arts more frequently — every few months or more — had a 31% lower risk of dying early when compared to those who didn’t. Even going to the theater or museum once or twice a year was linked with a 14% lower risk.