Glossary
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Mosaic

An artwork assembled from small pieces of tile, glass, or stone set into mortar: one of the most durable media in public art, which is why examples survive from antiquity.

Durability is why mosaics get specified where paint can't survive: floors, pool surrounds, transit stations, splash pads. When a mosaic does fail, it's almost never the tesserae. It's the substrate and mortar behind them, which is why condition checks should look for hollow sounds and hairline cracking long before any tiles go missing.