Who made the Floor Mosaic?
Maggie McCracken, Class of 2025, College of the Holy Cross
The identity of the artist or artists who made this mosaic remain unknown. Since the mosaic was installed in a private home, the artist was most likely contracted. There may have been just one person working on the floor, but most likely there were multiple artisans under the direction of an onsite administrator. Since floor mosaics are part of the architecture of a building, it is interesting to consider how a mosaicist might be different from other artists. The mosaicist does not work in a separate studio; they work in the final location that the piece will be seen. Advantages to this include having a good idea of the shape of the room and lighting. The artists were adept at creating an image but was also skilled in assembling the multiple layers of material that underlie the actual tesserae (stone cubes). An artist in the early medieval period would most likely have been trained in a workshop to use the style that their workshop head knew. There is evidence that there was a workshop directly in Antioch and that Hellenistic (Greek) styles were taught based on the themes and types of images found regularly there.
