Savouring the mosaics of Corinth
I have a new theory that the particular pleasure a museum can bring is not so much in the exhibits themselves but rather in the person one is with (or ones that one is without). This theory was recently tested by a trip to see the mosaics of Corinth.
There are museums which are so wonderful (the Metropolitan, the British Museum, the Cairo Museum), that you can go with a hoard of elephants and you couldn’t fail to be moved. But ideally museums need to be savoured.
I visited the mosaics of Corinth, which are scarcely an hour from our home in Athens, at least twice before. But savouring was never an option. With three boys in tow, we enjoyed ourselves in the room full of ancient votive phalluses while I worked out where the nearest ice cream kiosk was.
But on this trip things were different. In the company of a good friend, with the whole day ahead of us, savouring was not only possible but almost compulsory. The museum at the ancient site is small, the exhibits are few and the ruins empty. Moreover we were alone and could do entirely as we pleased with no one tugging at our sleeves or suddenly announcing an urgent need to use the toilet. So, since we had the opportunity to savour, savour we did.
The four mosaics of Corinth
The mosaics of Corinth are particularly ripe for savouring because there are so few of them. Four to be precise, two of which are incomplete. All four are wall mounted. Mosaics in situ or transposed to museum floors are impressive in their way, but for the lover and maker of mosaics, nothing quite beats being able to rub shoulders with them.
A single room with a few mosaics tacked up on the wall might not compare to visiting to whole mosaic collections like those at Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep, Turkey or the Great Palace Mosaic Museum in Istanbul.
But their paucity concentrates the mind and the ability to see them up close compensates for a lot. The mosaics of Corinth come from Roman villas near the main site and date from the second to third century AD.
Details in the mosaics of Corinth
If there are only four of them, surely they would take five minutes to look at. Tak tak, as the Greeks would say. What is there to keep you looking? Well, the detail of course.
I once spent a week in the Cairo Museum writing an article about it’s 100th anniversary. It was days before I noticed that Tutankhamen’s bed had hinges so it could be folded away. Hinges! It’s time to linger over the mosaics of Corinth. First, the colours:
Next, the lines and movement in the cockerel:
And all the other little details:
With time and the right company one can look again at the face of Dionysos:
And admire the filling in method:
After the mosaics, there’s plenty more to see. Kate found an exquisite glass bracelet, as ephemeral as a soap bubble, lying on an inconspicuous lower shelf. It seemed too fragile to photograph:
All this, before you even start on the vast site itself which encompasses ruins from the Greek and Roman eras:
