The ancient art of mosaic has gone through great evolution and revolution through the ways that artists have learned to adapt to new socioeconomic and artistic realities and employ new materials.
The new techniques and methods that mosaic artists use today can still manage to capture what mosaic art is about. Not a broken image, not just pieces put together to form an image, not attempts at imitating painting but authentic images that talk and breathe with their vibrant materials (in this case, nails), the interactive dialogue of those materials between them (a dialogue on so many "levels" achieved by different depths and sizes of the mosaic tessera*).
The solemnity suggested by the dynamic and floating texture of the portraits in the second picture created by Andrew Meyers transports us to a very unique roman mosaic portrait masterpiece from Pompeii. Even though these portraits are separated by a little over 2000 years, the artists have been so true to their own technique and created their artwork with such extraordinary craftsmanship that we could almost say that the outcome, is quite similar, at least to my humble view.
"To convey solemnity and beauty in ways that it does perfect justice to the subject and evokes feelings of harmony and inner peace to the audience".
pictures of nail mosaics from http://additionsstyle.blogspot.it
picture of Pompeii mosaic from mosaic art source blog
