Gilded mosaics and blue lunette Symbolism
In Byzantine church decoration, gilded mosaics catch and scatter light to signify sacred radiance. A blue lunette—the semicircular field above a portal or bay—offers a cool ground that balances gold and frames sacred imagery. Together, gold and blue became a shorthand for splendor and sanctity that artists could later evoke through color and light alone.
Gilded mosaics and blue lunette in The Piazza San Marco, Venice
In Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s The Piazza San Marco, Venice (1881), St. Mark’s Basilica is rendered as atmosphere: domes, mosaics, and the crowd dissolve into vibrating color. The idea of gilded mosaic is converted into optical shimmer as light breaks across the square and figures resolve into daubs, shifting sacred brilliance from material surface to sensation. Renoir’s blue‑violet shadows supply the cool chromatic counterpoint associated with a blue lunette, preserving the gold–blue pairing as mood rather than as legible architectural detail.
