Ancient Mosaics

Wonderful book. Good service.

This title is absolutely worth every penny. Though weighing in at only 143 pages, it is deceptively meaty and educational. The 106 selected photos (47 color and 49 B/W) are crisp, beautiful, and plentiful, and the inclusion of a maps and a glossary were also helpful. The mosaics selected for illustration are sublime, and even those ravaged by time are hardly less beautiful for it. Chapters are (in order) Intro, Greek Period, Roman Italy, Roman North-West, Roman Africa, Wall and Vault Mounts, and Context and Meaning. In a book of this length each chapter is necessarily short, but the examples chosen to illustrate each section are well-chosen to guide further study in selected areas.

This book is short, almost every page has a photograph of a mosaic, and the writing is decent, so it is suitable as a first book to read about Greek and Roman mosaics. But Ling takes too much of his short space to describe the figures and perspective of mosaics and says too little about the procedures used to make mosaics. There is just one diagram showing schematically how mosaics were laid, and this follows Vitruvius who Ling immediately says is often not followed in the pavements we study! I would like to hear less about chiaroscuro and more about the ingredients used in the mortar, and most of all how the complicated geometric designs were done.The long descriptions feel pointless and read like heraldry. Also, the glossary is inadequate for an introduction: the author in many places uses technical or quasi-technical terms like roundel, apsidal, vegetal, frieze, "rhythmic", register, ambulatory, without ever defining what these mean in art writing. Finally, Ling says a little about the social place of mosaic makers, but the only source he mentions is Diocletian's Edict on Prices, which is notorious for not being followed.A great service would be done by making a database of all ancient mosaics. As far as I can tell this does not exist, but perhaps something like that can be done on Wikipedia. I am not an historian of arts and crafts; if I were I would go ahead with this myself.

This book was a disappointment and when I look at the ridiculous prices being asked for it these days ($62.00 for the cheapest copy!!), I got motivated to write a review. It all depends on your expectations. If you want information on Greek and Roman mosaics, on the history and techniques, then this book has a lot of information, even if it is a short book (140 pages). But if you want stunning pictures of ancient mosaics, this is not the book to get. The book has 47 color pictures and 49 black/white pictures. The pictures tend to be small, as the priority is given to the text, not the photographs.My interest is in Byzantine mosaics. Two books that have good color pictures of Byzantine mosaics are: "Byzantine Art" by Jannic Durand, and "Byzantium: from Antiquity to the Renaissance" by Thomas Mathews, which is a smaller book, but also has many color photographs. Neither of those would qualify as a coffee table book, but the one by Durand comes closest to that.German publisher Konemman came out with a book which is oversize that probably has lots of picture of Byzantine art (as well as Ottoman art), called "Constantinople: Istanbul's historical heritage", by Stephane Yerasimos. I have not seen it yet, but Konemann's books are usually "feast for the eyes" material.I don't know of book on ancient mosaics in general (not just Byzantine) that has great color photographs. If that is your interest, surely this one by Roger Ling is not the one.

Mr. Ling, as our tour guide, transports us back in time and from Africa to ancient England, sharing the history, development and travel/migration of this peculiar art form. His 'tour bus' stops frequently at wonderful examples as he shares bits of history, syles, techniques and other information quickly and painlessly.Aside from detailed instructions on "How To", Mr. Ling's book gives everything else one could ask for. Actually, one could make mosaics learning from this book, it just doesn't have that particular focus.I've only had the book for 13 hours so am anxious to get home and pick it up for another read.

I really appreciate scholarly works like this book. I've been trying to find a good book on the history of mosaics that is - in-print - and this is it! Excellent documentation! Not too - dry - of a read either. A big thanks to Roger Ling for the enlightenment. Beautiful photographs, wish there were a-whole-lot more.

wonderful reading of mosaics found across the Roman Empire.