The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, also known as the “New Cathedral,” is the crown jewel of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis. A magnificent structure, the cathedral is Romanesque in style on the exterior and Byzantine on the interior. The church contains the largest mosaic collection in the world -- 41.5 million pieces of mosaic glass covering 83,000 square feet.
Like the objects on exhibit at "Vatican Splendors," the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis is recognized for its artistic beauty and historical significance. It is fitting that a portion of the "Vatican Splendors" exhibit includes mosaic work from St. Louis' great cathedral.
The sample panel on display at the “Vatican Splendors” announcement news conference today was created by Barry Faulkner to show the process in which the mosaics at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis are made and mounted to the surface.
The art of mosaics begins with the design of the artist. The subject matter is usually worked out between the patron who has commissioned the mosaic work and the artist. When the subject matter is agreed upon, the artist works out a preliminary small sketch of his or her conception of the subject matter. The patron or committee commissioning the work then critiques this design. The artist works on modifications of the design until the design is satisfactory to everyone.
At this point the artist works out an enlarged watercolor rendering of the design, which is again critiqued until all elements of composition and color are agreed upon. The artist then renders a final completed enlarged watercolor design that will be the guide which the actual mosaicist in the studio follows when translating the design into the mosaic medium.
Working in watercolor, the artist enlarges the whole design to the actual scale of the final mosaic. This is the final cartoon, which will be translated into the mosaic medium by the mosaicist in the mosaic studio.
The final mosaic is very large, as many of the mosaics in the Cathedral are, the to-scale cartoon has to be cut up into sections small enough for the mosaicists to work on at their work tables. At any one time they may be working on only the face of a figure or a fragment of the setting. That is why they must have the medium sized artist’s rendering of the whole composition or a sufficiently large section of the scale cartoon before them in the studio to translate the particular section of the artist’s design they are working on into the medium of mosaic as the artist conceived it.
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