Theater masks were decorative elements in Greek art and architecture, and that continued with Roman culture. This is a mosaic of a tragic mask found in Pompeii. It’s surrounded by grape vines, pomegranates, and other plants that denoted fertility in Roman iconography. In this representation, the face of the mask seems to react to the dense surrounding of the plants with a sort of horror, as if they are closing in on him. What’s really amazing is the pictorial detail realized in the medium of mosaic. The grapes, for example, are in varying stages of ripeness, some greenish and translucent and others with a purple tinge. The mosaicist has even managed to give the grapes a kind of shiny gleam.