and it seemed for the mosaics, all we ever saw were portraits of Mary and Child. They all blended together (and we were supposed to tell the difference between them during tests.)

But this one is beautiful! And it looks like they used especially tiny tiles. The restoration process must be even more difficult. If only my art history professor has shown us this kind of mosaic work instead

the church is in the Byzantine period. Of course, my classes in it were over thirty years ago, so we might have studied other mosaics. I do remember them from a different professor but of much earlier periods, such as in Greece and Rome. But those weren't nearly as intricate as these.

The first thing I noticed about them is that they don't have the soccer-ball heads of earlier Byzantine work, and Jesus doesn't scowl like the typical Pantokrator.

It's all absolutely gorgeous. I loved art history.

With them being 20th-century, it makes me wonder how much of the cleanup involves removing cigarette-smoke deposits Or just standard city air-pollution for all those decades.

As for art history, I loved ancient art history, and late-19th to early 20th century. The Renaissance period didn't do much for me.