During the Late Empire a series of changes took place in Roman society, including of course life in the provinces, including Hispania. As a reflection of this society, art is going to be affected by these changes. This article intends to see specifically how it affected the mosaic in Hispania during the Lower Empire and one of the places where it is usually found, the village or villas. In this case we will see the Villa de Noheda.
From the middle of the third century AD, a series of events occurred in the peninsula that would influence art. The serious crisis of this century will affect the economic, social, political and religious spheres, leading to inflation, currency devaluation and price increases. The invasion of the Franks and Alemanni also took place, destroying part of the territory. All this favored the abandonment of the cities and the rise of the rural world, with the expansion of the latifundium, the displacement of the economic center towards the plateau, the cut off of oil and wine exports to Rome, the disappearance of the old Hispanic aristocracy and the decrease of the use of the portrait and the steles. With the arrival of the Tetrarchy there will be a resurgence of urban life and with it a recovery of the economy.
At the end of the 4th century AD, an observable phenomenon in all the peripheral provinces of the Empire occurred in the mosaic of the peninsula, consisting of the union of elements from different regions. This mixture within the same scenes results in a unique folk art, reflecting the diverse characteristics of the different regions, being able to relate mosaics far apart from each other.
Already focusing on the mosaic during the Lower Empire in Hispania, and specifically in the Carthaginian one, we must take into account the different characteristics between the different provinces, since in each one one can appreciate particularities between their styles.
During the Lower Empire, the territory of the peninsula was divided into five provinces: Tarraconense, Lusitania, Galecia, Bética and Cartaginense. The example in this article is included in the province Carthaginian.
In the Cartaginense province, specific aspects can be highlighted. This region, which included the entire plateau, was full of villages dedicated to agriculture, due to the centralization of the economy in this area. In this way it became the residence of landowners who adorned their village with mosaics. Most of them were mythological in theme, since the majority of the population was still pagan, despite Theodosius’ edict against paganism in the West (Blázquez, 1978, p. 756). This predilection for the mythological, therefore, would be an attempt by local elites to preserve part of their identity in the face of the entry of a new cultural horizon (Bermejo Tirado, 2010 p. 86).
During this century, rural residential complexes began to expand, in some cases becoming true fortresses with multiple interconnected buildings. Some will even have an exterior wall. But this is only going to be one aspect in which these complexes are going to evolve, since the playful aspect is also going to be accentuated. They become places of otium Y negotium (leisure and business) in which the image that you want to convey to the visitor is very important (Valero Tévar, 2015 p. 74). And within this image is where the mosaics will have great importance.
the mosaic is a decorative technique used whose use is documented from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. It was incorporated into the Roman world through Greece, its style and artists being predominant in the first phases until the 1st century AD With the arrival of the imperial era, the mosaic became the work of Roman artists who would be in charge of giving it their own style and take the Roman mosaic to its maximum expression. During the republican period, Rome assimilated the techniques of the Greek workshops and adapted them to their own needs and ideology, using them predominantly on floors and using variations within the techniques, using, for example, cement instead of the usual mortar.
Mosaics are made by using small pieces, called tesserae. These pieces could be made of any material, from marble to ceramics, passing through vitreous paste. The tesserae used to be the same size, with a cubic shape (hence their name, coming from the Greek term Tessara, which means four). Normally they were about half a centimeter, but at the time of greatest development they reached two centimeters.
The tesserae were distributed on a surface that had been smoothed and prepared with a layer of liquid cement or mortar. On this wet layer the tesserae were distributed following the desired pattern and on top of them another layer of mortar and small pieces to fill in the empty spaces. Once dry, the whole was polished to remove impurities and intensify the color of the tesserae.
Many specialists were involved in making the mosaics, each taking on a specific task in the process. First, an artist made a cardboard with the desired theme. Then another passed on a piece of paper the design that would go in the definitive place. Already in the process of making the mosaic itself, there was again a chain of specialists: one cut the tesserae, another prepared the mortar or cement, another embedded the tesserae… etc. This is the reason why most of the mosaics are not signed, if any signature appears, it will usually be that of the creator of the original cardboard or the person in charge of placing the tesserae.
As for the paving techniques, they were varied, giving rise to four different types of mosaic: opus signinum, opus sectile, opus tessellatum Y opus vermiculatum.
The opus signinum It was born in the Lazio city of Signina, from where the name comes, and uses a material typical of the area: clay. This technique created the pavement from materials such as brick and tile dust, and simple motifs were made on them using tesserae.
The opus sectile It is made by fitting pieces of marble creating geometric, vegetable or animal motifs.
The opus tessellatum and the opus vermiculatum They usually appear associated. Both use the prototypical mosaic method, but in the case of the second it differs by greater complexity and thoroughness. Thus, smaller sized tesserae are used, so greater accuracy could be achieved when reproducing the different motifs, as well as their shadows and contours. This style came directly from the Hellenistic tradition, bursting onto the Roman scene in the second century BC.
As for their theme, most of the mosaics referred to history and myths, and also to plant, animal or geometric decorations. In this way, mosaics can also be divided into different types: ”carpet”, ”emblemata”, ”Hellenistic” and ”costumbrista”.
The carpet mosaic had its heyday in the s. II AD, and is characterized by the predominance of geometric motifs accompanied by plant themes. It was structured through regular geometric figures that were conditioning the distribution of elements and colors.
The mosaic of carpet with emblem is a variant of this type, being its development immediately later, at the end of the 2nd century and during the 3rd century AD This type of mosaic incorporates the ”emblemata” to plant and geometric themes: panels that contained a scene of greater importance occupying the central space of the mosaic, and which were carried out with greater detail. For this the rest of the mosaic was made on-site, creating the emblem separately and then transported and placed in its place. The scenes represented in these panels had very different themes: animals, objects, busts…
The hellenistic mosaic It takes place from the 2nd to the 4th century AD As already indicated by its name, it is directly related to the heritage of Greece, reproducing the most important Greek paintings from different periods. They are mosaics with a greater compositional complexity and chromatic richness that tried to emulate their predecessors.
The last type is traditional mosaic. This mosaic, due to its theme far from mythology and historical scenes, had a greater development in the residences of the middle classes, and, above all, in the provinces. They represented scenes of daily life, hunting, fights in amphitheaters and circuses, landscapes, anecdotal scenes… He was more interested in the representation of life than in the exaltation of Roman ideals. This conception did not affect the quality of the mosaics, but it did affect the composition and formal criteria, leaving aside the previous symmetry and arrangement to focus on realism in the scenes. A naturalistic approach can be seen, with movement studies and with a greater development of the landscape, both natural and man-made (Nieto Yusta, 2011 p. 328-336).
Noheda’s village
As an example of these village we have the town of Noheda. It is located in the province of Cuenca, in the municipality of Villar de Domingo García. Its construction has been dated to the Theodosian period, and it is located within the tradition of the Carthaginian province that has already been discussed. It has been dated around the 4th century AD
The mosaic measures approximately 80 m2 in total, with very fine tesserae and excellent polychromy (Blázquez Martínez, 2010 p. 101).
This mosaic paves a large rectangular room with three exedras. In the center of the room there is a rectangular fountain at ground level. This building must have been part of a larger complex, in which it would stand out both for its size and height. There are several rooms attached to it, among which one with an octagonal floor plan located to the northeast of the building stands out. Both the exedras and the octagonal room are decorated with geometric and plant-themed mosaics, while the mosaic in the great hall depicts a large number of mythological and allegorical figures and scenes. The rectangular room was preceded by a narthex-like vestibule that was accessed by climbing a step.
The figured mosaic that decorated the room is divided into bands. Various mythological scenes are represented from the head to the foot of the nave.
the first band (scene C in the image), without separations, represents three different scenes: on the left, a group of six people; in the central space, two chariots; and to the right, a lost scene. The first scene features a bearded male figure, wearing a white headband and sitting on a throne. This man addresses another figure, standing in front of him, who would represent Paris, wearing a Phrygian cap. Behind them, four other figures, two men and two women. The most prominent character would be the woman on the left. She would be Helena, represented with a nuptial medallion with which she will be identified throughout the mosaic.
This scene represents the moment when King Tyndareus, flanked by his…