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How did Renaissance mosaics become increasingly like paintings?

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Bird mosaic — mosaic Mosaic floor fragment from a synagogue or church, cut stone with mortar from Israel, late 5th–6th century ce; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.

During the Renaissance, mosaic art underwent a significant transformation as artists began to prioritize pictorial realism, leading them to treat the medium as an imitation of painting. This shift was driven by a desire to align mosaic with the prevailing artistic conventions of the time, which often involved a rejection of the traditional, "other-worldly" use of gold that had defined earlier mosaic styles.1

The process of creating these mosaics changed fundamentally, resulting in a decline in technical mastery. Previously, the leading artist was deeply involved in the technical execution and the setting of tesserae. During the Renaissance, however, the creative process became divided: the artist would submit a cartoon (a preparatory design), and the actual transposition into mosaic was left to artisans. This separation of design from execution effectively drained the medium of its unique vitality and led to a degradation of the craft, as the focus shifted toward reproducing the illusionistic qualities of paintings rather than embracing the inherent potential of the mosaic medium itself.1