Smalt

Fascinating with its colors and the most durable, so you can describe one of the types of monumental art – the smalt mosaic. Roman mosaics of smalt survived two millennia without losing their beauty and brightness. The first production of smalt as a material for decorative and finishing works were created in Ancient Rome around the II—I century BC, during this period the Roman mosaic became one of the main artistic techniques in interior decoration. The production was extremely manual and largely unpredictable end result.

A Roman mosaic combines colored glass with natural stone. Smalt (from him. Smalte or Schmalte, schmelzen to melt, ital. smalto — enamel; shmalta — color opaque ("jammed") glass made by special technologies of smelting with the addition of metal oxides, as well as modules of different shapes, obtained from smalta by splitting or cutting. Pieces of smalt are a traditional material for creating mosaic panels.

Coloured glass is the main material for creating mosaics today. There are several types of colored smalt: transparent smalt, translucent and blind — based on colored oxides and silencing substances. Smalt has the widest color palette. Inside one glass manual smelting can also be a slight shimmer of color, which in the finished product creates the effect of vivid color and flicker from the inside.

Color smalt is a direct analogue of the color palette of the painter, where the color modules, and shades of smalt are precious strokes in the overall mosaic picture of gems. Smaltfactory provides a rich and interesting palette of colored glazes.

Significant progress in the production of gold glazes made up of the masters of Byzantium. In the monumental interiors of Christian churches before the iconoclastic period, mosaic was used everywhere — both in the creation of complex artistic compositions on biblical themes, and in the ornamental decoration of various surfaces of walls, Windows, doorways. A special technique was the use of gold smalt as a solid background embodying the divinity of the depicted subjects of their heavenly involvement. Golden mosaic background, creates an unearthly feeling of light blurring the boundaries of the interior, making it weightless, soaring above the earth.

Golden modules of smalt lying on the plane of the wall at different angles create a shining atmosphere, where each element reflects the light with a shimmering Shine, then lighting up, then fading.

Smaltfactory for many years has been working on expanding the range of gold and silver smalt, enriching it with new color and texture samples suitable for solving various artistic problems.

After the fall of Byzantium, the centre of glass production and melts the glazes have moved to Italy. But the high cost of smalt and mosaic works themselves led to the dominance of painting and fresco techniques in the decoration of temples, palaces and public buildings. Master glassmakers gradually made the technology of smelting smalt secret, which also contributed to the transformation of the process of making smalt mosaics in a rare and exclusive art.

Factory of art materials www.smaltfactory.com more than 10 years engaged in the production of artistic material for mosaics and restoration using gold, silver and platinum. For many years, the production of smalt is our narrow specialization and our goal is the revival of the smalt business, the continuation of the old traditions of the production of smalt as a high art. Smalt of our production is the exclusive material which has no analogs in the territory of Russia. Over the years our Studio has developed a unique production technology of color and gold glazes allowing the art to obtain a material with a wide color and even tonal stretch marks. In the production of gold and silver smalt, we use not only foil precious metals such as gold leaf, platinum, silver and preparations of precious metals (platinum, palladium, gold), but also a special glass of domestic and foreign production.

All modern production as automated and try to reduce the proportion of direct human participation in the process. At the factory of art materials www.smaltfactory.com production of gold, silver and colored smalt at all stages is man-made. And it allows not only to control the process of each technological cycle, but also to create a truly "live" and literally unique material. Smalt made "by hand" is a real artistic material like ceramics, remembering the hands of the Potter and the texture of the furnace bottom.

It continues to breathe its lively texture and deep color in the mosaic works of modern masters. Each mosaic object is made with the use of our glazes are unique. We always strive to work in close contact with artists, to, based on their artistic vision and features of each object, as accurately as possible to choose the artistic material.

Decorative characteristics and properties of the material are very diverse, the material has different surfaces for work, one is smoother, the other is more textured, if colored, then working more on the chip. Also, the decorative gold and silver smalt works using double-sided colored glass, or a combination of color and transparent.

More than ten years our manufactory smaltfactory.com cooperates with the largest mosaic artists and design organizations of Russia. Gold and silver smalt exclusively produced smaltfactory.com uses in mosaics of his projects honored architect of Russia academician of the Academy of Architectural Heritage Andrey Anisimov (Sretensky temple of Danilov monastery in Moscow, the temple of Faith, Hope, love and their mother Sofia at the children's cancer center in Moscow, the lower Church of the Annunciation Cathedral in the Diveevsky monastery and other objects). We cooperate with a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of arts and Honored architect of Russia Andrei Obolensky (mosaic dome of the Kazan temple in the village Meshchersky). We have solved the daunting task of selecting and recreating authentic counterparts glazes in tones and colours in the process of restoration of the pavilions "Exhibition of achievements of National Economy" - Belarus, Ukraine, pavilion 1, Space and others. We conducted a large technological search, trying to get as close as possible to the color palette of partially lost mosaics. As a result of long-term experiments of our workshop, several dozen samples of smalt of different color shades were developed. The materials of our factory are used in the mosaic decoration of the unique in its scale Cathedral of Savva Serbian in Belgrade, which is organized by the international Fund of UNESCO.