(day 6) Great Palace mosaics museum

After leaving the Hippodrome, I considered going to the nearby Blue Mosque, but since it's free to enter I instead opted to go to the rest of the museums on the museum card.

The Great Palace Mosaics museum holds large Byzantine mosaics, originally part of the Great Palace (that old building that Ali showed us), discovered during excavations in Sultanahmet.

Entry to most of the sights and museums look like this, turnstile, a place to insert tickets or scan your museum card. This museum was very laxly monitored, no metal detector or scanning of bags, or even posted guards. I definitely could have chipped away a piece of mosaic to bring home, if I wanted.

There was a lot of information here about the excavation, preservation, and restoration of the mosaics, but I didn't read it all so you are all saved from a boring lecture.

A closeup picture of a mosaic, showing the intricate detail and exactly how small the pieces of tile were.

If expand the previous picture to one of this scale, you can imagine just how much work went into a mosaic of this size.

Such cute chubby little Greeks (Romans?). I guess they were still working on perspective and realism.

Now up the scale to something of this size! I guess this may have been a whole wall section. Up close you can see all of the pixel-y mosaic tiles, but from far back it looks quite smooth and polished. I really like the colors used, kind of earthy and pastel, though that is probably due to 1500 years of weathering.

Most of the scenes were of man, beast, mythical creature, as well as daily life activities like hunting.

Or you know how when in everyday life a goat-tiger-eagle swoops down and grabs a lizard half the size of a tree in its jaws? Yah, just daily life things.

The mosaic were in remarkable condition for being some old, but of course, sadly, large pieces were missing and lost.

I keep getting these inspirations when I'm traveling, like when I was in Japan and Oregon/Seattle, where I have an idea for a small project to do programmatic art. In Japan it was from cherry blossoms, in Oregon/Seattle it was from vast forests of evergreens, and here in the Great Palace Mosaics Museum, I thought, huh. I wonder how hard it would be to write a little program that mosaic-ifies a picture. It would be easy to do a simple version that is probably rather ugly. I'm really curious what a simple version would look like, and how much work it would take to get a decent looking one.

Interesting. :)

I haven't been working on my climbing project lately, perhaps I will finally get around to taking a stab at programmatic art when I go home.

I particularly liked this one, the colors are still very vivid.

Fat stubby hand for scale. I have climbers hands now. :(

In each museum/landmark there is always at least one gift shop. Usually not enclosed, usually with a lot of books and information about the history or art behind the site. I keep wanting to buy books to read (I think my dad would like them too), but have to refrain because I don't have the space or baggage weight to bring them home. Maybe next time.

I'm really finding that I enjoy these small museums way more than the bigger attractions. I prefer Hagia Irene, Basilica Cistern, and this mosaic museum much more than Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace, for instance. I think the smaller number of tourists makes browsing feel more leisurely and relaxed, the setting feels less artificial, and the close proximity to the art really lets you examine the piece. By getting up close and personal, you can really feel how old the artifacts are, and to marvel that this mosaic that I can reach out and touch was once touched by another human being 1500 years ago.