What is smalt: varieties, properties and applications. Mosaic smalt

What is smalt? Simply put, pieces, brusochki or plates of colored glass. And if seriously, then this is the topic for the article. What is smalt, we will consider below.

Types of colored glass

• Transparent has a strong luster, pure deep color, plays and shimmers.
• Opal has a bright color, it has a special shine and juiciness of colors.
• Spots are obtained by melting glasses of different colors.
• Gold and silver. Between two layers of glass, insert the necessary plate.

A modern artist can choose a color from a huge number of shades that give salts and oxides of various metals to the glass. And all this is smalt glass.

Qualities of smalt

1. It glows from within the material itself.

2. Very durable (Roman mosaics from smalt have not lost over the millennia of its attractiveness). It is not afraid of dampness and frost, which allows it to be used as a universal exterior and interior decoration material.

3. The traditional size of the elements is 5 x 5 x 5 mm. But it can be any geometric figures - ovals and different polyhedra. To get such forms, the glass crumb is heated and molded. Now it becomes clearer what is smalt.

Smalta itself is quite expensive, and manual labor, which is used in the manufacture of the product, further increases the price.

Making smalt

The finished glass is ground into a powder. It can be either color, even bottle, or colorless. Add in various percentages of borax, nitrate, cobalt, cryolite and sent to a cooking oven. Then, the liquid hot mass without inclusions of air bubbles is poured into molds. Then they perform annealing and grinding. That's what smalt is.

History of smalt

Its history dates back to the beginning of our era, to ancient Rome. In it, she came from Greece and through it spread widely. The Romans loved the spectacular new material. Although, when they made glass stones, they did not always imagine what color they would turn out to be. The technology was not worked out. They liked to spread the floors with colored stones, the walls of their villas, palaces and the term, and also the paths in the gardens. But besides smalt, small pebbles and pebbles were often used in the mosaic. This technique can be used as a durable and very effective in our time. The wall, ceiling or floor of smalt transform your apartment. And if it is used in a home gym, then the floor will not wear out.

A different matter is Byzantium. In the Eastern Roman Empire the masters reached significant heights. Their work in comparison with the antique is more refined. Christian churches were richly ornamented. On the walls were created complex compositions on themes taken from the Bible. The window and doorways were also decorated. The laying of stones became more elegant, pebbles were used small. Widespread use of gold smalt as a background. Multicolored smalt became the main method of decoration. From it mosaic panels were created. Smalt was smelted in numerous workshops. The masters had their secrets, and the number of shades that they could get was more than a hundred. Byzantium even adopted a law by which the export of smalt was controlled by the state. By the middle of the fifteenth century, Byzantium was no more, and the production of smalt continued in Italy. It was expensive production, and it was not widely used.

In Russia and in Russia

Together with Baptism princes of Kievan Rus drew attention to the decoration of their churches. Archaeologists have found at least one workshop for making smalt for making icons.

At a later time, M.V. Lomonosov. His work was not found at that time of application, although he completely developed the melting of glass and the laying of a mosaic. Much later, when Auguste Monferann built St. Isaac's Cathedral, the mosaic of smalt was used to make icons and other elements of the cathedral, occupying about six hundred square meters. M. Another example of the use of smalt is associated with a difficult date - the untimely death of Emperor Alexander III. Then the temple of the Savior on the Blood was built. The interior was filled with mosaics from smalt.

What else is made of smalt

First of all, monumental panels. They can be located on a wall or a ceiling. The wall is decorated with a street part, a facade, as a rule, or an interior interior. If a panel from a mosaic, it is very often spread from smalt. On the wall or ceiling of a public building it really looks very majestic, especially if the artist has laid in it a deep content, large-scale and thorough.

In Soviet times

Bright examples of the application of the mosaic panel, assembled from smalt, are stations of the Moscow metro. For example, take two: "Chekhov" (1987) and "Kiev" (1954). The pylons that support the vaults on Chekhovskaya are invisible. Facing is made of white marble. But the travel walls are a real work of art. They are designed in the Florentine mosaic style and present scenes from the works of Anton Chekhov (see above). Quite differently, the station "Kievskaya" looks. There are eighteen pompous pylons on it, on which the Ukrainian people are glorified. And also working peasants and ordinary people who meet on May 1 and Victory Day. It is impossible not to mention the panel from the mosaic work of Pavel Korin at the station "Novoslobodskaya". It is called "World Peace". The majestic woman (who assumes that the model was the wife of the architect of this station), which meets people and holds a child, is depicted against the backdrop of a five-pointed star, sickle and hammer, golden sheaves of ears. Doves are hanging overhead. And there was a portrait of Stalin, which was removed after the XX Congress. The world, thus, is expressed in large generalized forms. Builders tell the legend that the architect and artist, following the tradition, laid the coins for the first glasses. Corina's group also worked at the station "Komsomolskaya-Koltseva", performing 8 mosaic panels. This was in 1951, so their common theme is the victory of the Russian people in various wars. There are still many examples at metro stations, because many of them look like palace halls.

Pictures from smalt

They can be safely placed in bathrooms, kitchens and, naturally, hung in rooms, halls, hallways. It can be both an original theme, and a copy of the paintings of famous Russian and foreign masters. In any room, pictures of smalt look organically, extremely unusual and spectacular. The disadvantages can be attributed only to their high price. But it is justified by the cost of the material and the delicate, laborious manual work.

This ancient technique is now receiving a new revival. Renovating the design of the room, it is good to remember about it and take advantage of its undeniable advantages.