The art of tiling would take root in the Iberian Peninsula under the influence of the Arabs, who brought the unknown mosaics to their conquered lands to decorate the walls of their palaces, making them shine and shine with a complex play of geometries.
The style fascinated the Spaniards and Portuguese, and Iberian artisans got to work: they took the Moorish technique, simplified it and adapted the patterns to Western tastes.
The first examples used in Portugal – the Hispano-Moorish – came from Seville at the end of the 15th century and were used to cover the walls of palaces and churches.
Around seventy years later, in 1560, pottery workshops began to appear in Lisbon, producing tiles using the faience technique imported from Italy.
The originality of the use of Portuguese tiles and the dialogue they established with other arts made them unique in the world.
At the National Tile Museum, there are panels that bear witness to the evolution and monumentality of this decorative ceramic, which has adapted to the needs and styles of different periods.
Museu Nacional do Azulejos em Lisboa
The Altarpiece of Our Lady of Life, from the late 16th century, made up of 1384 tiles that survived the great earthquake, is for art historian Alexandra Curvelo an example of the importance of tiles in Portugal.
The new tile industry flourished with orders from the nobility and the clergy.
Large panels were made to fill the walls of churches, monasteries, palaces, mansions and gardens.
Inspiration came from the decorative arts, textiles, jewellery, engravings and the Portuguese voyages to the East.
Large scenographic compositions were created, a hallmark of the Baroque, with geometric motifs, figurative and floral themes of exotic fauna and flora.
It was at this time that the patterned tile appeared, especially on altar frontals, one of the original uses of tiles, as we can see in this extract from the Guided Tour programme.
It was the ruling classes who first cultivated a taste for tiles, choosing the most appropriate theme to decorate their buildings: military campaigns, historical episodes, scenes from everyday life, religious, mythological and even some satire.
It was up to the potters to respond to these requests, copying models and adapting fashions and styles.
Towards the end of the 17th century, the quality of production and workmanship increased, whole families became involved in the art of tile-making, and some painters began to assert themselves as artists, signing their work, thus beginning the Masters Cycle.
Unusual scenes appeared on Portuguese tiles, surprising both for their originality and for the audacity of the craftsmen, who replaced people with monkeys, jaguars and chickens, for example, constructing fantastic, ironic stories that made people laugh.
The desire to introduce new themes into the decorative arts is often based on a certain improvisation linked to this unique way of wanting to do things differently, as we can see in the panel highlighted below entitled “A Caça ao Leopardo” (The Hunt for the Leopard).
The polychromy of yellows, greens and purplish browns gives way to blue on a white background, two colours inherited from Dutch influence and oriental porcelain.
Chronology of the most important moments in the history of Portuguese tiles. It includes examples of in situ applications of patterned, figurative and ornamental wall coverings, which testify to the architectural character of these applications and distinguish them from those known in other European countries.
The multiple influences that Portuguese tiles have absorbed and reinterpreted over more than five centuries of use are also included.
This synthesis also highlights the constant quotation of tastes, techniques and motifs from previous eras, in a continuous dialogue between past and present that marks the history of Portuguese tiles.
After the earthquake of 1755, the reconstruction of Lisbon set a new pace in the production of patterned tiles, now known as pombalinos, used to decorate the new buildings.
The tiles were produced in series, combining industrial and artisanal techniques.
By the end of the 18th century, tiles were no longer the exclusive preserve of the nobility and the clergy, and the wealthy bourgeoisie began to commission them for their estates and palaces.
The panels sometimes tell the story of the family and even their social rise, as can be seen in the set entitled “História do Chapeleiro António Joaquim Carneiro” (History of the Chapeleiro António Joaquim Carneiro), exhibited at the National Tile Museum.
From the 19th century onwards, tiles became more visible, moving from palaces and churches to the façades of buildings, in a close relationship with architecture.
The urban landscape was illuminated by the light reflected from the glazed surfaces.
Tile production was intense and new factories were built in Lisbon, Oporto and Aveiro. Later, in the middle of the 20th century, tiles were used in railway and metro stations, some of them signed by famous artists.
The tradition became even more popular as a decorative solution for kitchens and bathrooms, a testament to the endurance, innovation and renewal of this small ceramic tile.
AZULEJO is the Portuguese word for a square ceramic tile, decorated and glazed on one side.
Its use is common in other countries such as Spain, Italy, Holland, Turkey, Iran and Morocco, but in Portugal it is particularly important in the universal context of artistic creation:
- For the longevity of its use, without interruption for five centuries.
- For the way it has been used, as a structuring element in architecture, through large coverings inside buildings and on external facades.
- For the way it has been understood over the centuries, not only as a decorative art, but also as a means of renewing tastes and registering images.
Tiles in Portugal – support for tolerance between exoticism and sensuality
AZULEJO is an identifiable element of Portuguese culture, revealing some of its deepest roots:
- The capacity for dialogue with other peoples, expressed in a taste for the exotic, which mixes the themes of European culture with those of Arab and Indian cultures, for example.
- A quick sense of practicality, which can be seen in the use of a conventionally poor material, the tile, as a means of aesthetically enhancing the interiors of buildings and urban spaces.
- A specific sensibility that, in Portugal, is more oriented towards sensual values than conceptual ones, which manifests itself in the preference for a colourful, light-reflecting material rather than the direct expression of painting, and in the choice of images themselves, which are more oriented towards the description of reality.
History and chronology of Portuguese tiles
- Period from 1490 to 1550
- Period from 1500 to 1560
- Period from 1575 to 1600
- Period from 1580 to 1630
- Period from 1600 to 1700
- Period from 1610 to 1680
- Period from 1675 to 1700
- Period from 1700 to 1725
- Period from 1725 to 1750
- Period from 1740 to 1790
- Period from 1770 to 1820
- Period from 1780 to 1830
- Period from 1840 to 1900
- Period from 1890 to 1920
- Period from 1900 to 1940
- Period from 1950 to 1970
- Period from 1970 to 2013
1. Period from 1490 to 1550
Hispano-Moorish Tiles
Imported from the main tile-producing centres of the Iberian Peninsula: Seville, Manises, Valencia, Málaga and Toledo.
Patterned tiles with geometric motifs and lacework, later also with plant motifs, applied with an architectural sense.
Dry-rope techniques and, at the turn of the century, edge techniques.
Islamic tradition
The first known use of tiles as monumental wall coverings in Portugal were Hispano-Moorish tiles imported from Seville around 1503.
The Arab presence in the Iberian Peninsula was felt in the permanence of the practice of ceramics, with Seville being the main tile-producing centre, still using the archaic techniques of rope-drying and edging, until the mid-16th century.
Motifs evolved from Moorish lace and geometric chains to European flora and fauna, between Gothic and pure Renaissance tastes.
What remained in Portugal, however, more than the motifs themselves, was the Moorish taste for excess in the total decorative covering of spaces, a kind of horror of emptiness.
2 Period from 1500 to 1560
Imported tiles [Renaissance and Mannerist tiles].
Importation of majolica tiles from Seville, with Francisco Niculoso (1504), and from Flanders (1558), where Italian artists had settled.
They depict, among other things, classical stories, brutescos and ferroneries. There are specific orders with Portuguese heraldry, for example for the Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa.
Influence of Italy and Flanders
The development of ceramics in Italy, with the possibility of painting directly on the tile using the majolica technique, made it possible to create compositions with different figurations, both historical and decorative.
Italian ceramists settled in Flanders and spread Mannerist decorative motifs and themes from classical antiquity.
Orders for Portugal were placed in Flanders, and the establishment of Flemish ceramists in Lisbon led to the beginning of Portuguese production in the second half of the 16th century.
Internationally disseminated models derived from the Mannerist aesthetic of Flanders were now used by tile painters, who created monumental compositions with the erudite knowledge of drawing and painting masters such as Francisco and Marçal de Matos.
17th – 18th centuries – Works commissioned in Holland
Beginning in the last quarter of the 17th century and continuing for almost fifty years, monumental sets of tiles were imported from the Netherlands.
Designed by skilled painters such as Willem van der Kloet and Jan van Oort, the technical superiority of the Dutch tiles and their blue colour, reminiscent of Chinese porcelain, appealed to the Portuguese public.
The effort to adapt them to our tastes by creating monumental sets contributed to this success.
These imports forced the national workshops to react by hiring painters trained in academic painting to satisfy a clientele that was now more demanding, and the new Portuguese tiles led to the natural abandonment of imports, with the last major order dating from 1715.
In addition to the large figurative panels, ordinary tiles were also imported from the Netherlands, called “single-figure” tiles, each representing an autonomous scene, an intimate production in keeping with Dutch taste, but applied in Portugal according to our tradition, with mouldings painted on the tile.
17th century – repeating tiles
Once the taste for monumental ceramic tiles in churches and palaces had been established in Portugal, it was expensive to commission large, unique compositions for each space, and repeated tiles were often chosen.
At the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, there were compositions of enxaquetados, single-colour tiles that alternated to create decorative patterns on walls.
Although the tiles were cheap, their application was complicated and slow, which made the process expensive and led to their gradual abandonment.
Patterned tiles, produced in large quantities and easy to apply, were first used in repeating modules of 232 tiles, then in larger modules of up to 12312 tiles, creating strong diagonal rhythms.
In each of these applications of patterned tiles, the use of borders and bars was essential for effective integration into the architectural contours.
3. Period from 1575 to 1600
First Portuguese production
Beginning of the Portuguese production, with the same characteristics as the previous cycle and using the majolica technique, of which the chapel of São Roque, in the Jesuit church, with the same invocation, is one of the best examples, signed and dated: Francisco de Matos, 1584.
4. Period from 1580 to 1630
Tiles in a box
Coverings with geometric patterns that articulate with the spaces in which they are inserted, with tiles of a single colour (blue and green) combined with other white tiles, cut and adapted to the architecture.
Coverings with geometric patterns that articulate with the spaces in which they are inserted, with tiles of a single colour (blue and green) combined with other white tiles, cut and adapted to the architecture.
5. Period from 1600 to 1700
Patterned tiles
Integral floor coverings with polychrome patterned tiles depicting geometric, interlaced, plant, floral, etc. motifs delimited by bars, borders or friezes, reminiscent of tapestries.
This is why these coverings were known as “tapestries”.
There were also altar panels that simulated oriental fabrics, with exotic representations and brutesco compositions.
Integral coverings with polychrome patterned tiles with geometric, interlaced, plant, floral, etc. motifs, delimited by bars, borders or friezes, reminiscent of tapestries.
This is why these coverings were known as “tapestries”. There were also altarpieces that simulated oriental fabrics, with exotic representations and brutesco compositions.
Integral coverings with polychrome patterned tiles with geometric, interlaced, floral, etc. motifs, delimited by bars, borders or friezes, reminiscent of tapestries.
This is why these coverings became known as “tapestries”. There were also altarpieces that simulated oriental fabrics, with exotic representations and brutesco compositions.
6. Period from 1610 to 1680
Intense polychromy
Figurative scenes, polychrome and with a summary design, were integrated into the large surfaces filled with patterned tiles.
These representations would eventually become autonomous and in the second half of the century we can see figurative or brutal coverings and ample foliage, executed in intense polychromy.
The designs were inspired by engravings.
Figurative, polychrome and short-drawn scenes were integrated into the large surfaces filled with patterned tiles.
These representations would eventually become autonomous and in the second half of the century we can see figurative or brutal coverings and ample foliage, executed in intense polychromy.
The images were inspired by engravings.
7. Period from 1675 to 1700
Transitional period
The first examples, still with a manganese outline, were painted in blue and white.
The paintings are used in churches and palaces, in complex iconographic programmes organised in reading levels.
Some of the names of the painters are known, and Gabriel del Barco deserves special mention.
The first examples, still with a manganese outline, were painted in blue and white.
The paintings are used in churches and palaces, in complex iconographic programmes organised into reading levels. Some of the names of the painters are known, and Gabriel del Barco deserves special mention.
The first examples, still with a manganese outline, were painted in blue and white.
The paintings are used in churches and palaces, in complex iconographic programmes organised in reading levels.
Some of the names of the painters are known, and Gabriel del Barco deserves special mention.
8. Period from 1700 to 1725
Cycle of the Masters
Paintings of great erudition, in blue and white, executed by masters who were also oil painters and ceiling painters.
Designer tiles, signed by the most important painters, each of them showing different ways of understanding tile painting: António de Oliveira Bernardes, Manuel dos Santos, António Pereira, Mestre P.M.P..
18th century – The cycle of masters
At the beginning of the 17th century, the tile painter regained the status of artist, often signing his work.
The forerunner was the Spaniard Gabriel del Barco, who worked in Portugal at the end of the 17th century and introduced a taste for more exuberant decorative involvement and painting freed from the strict contours of drawing.
These innovations paved the way for other artists and ushered in a golden period of Portuguese tile-making – the Masters’ Cycle – a reaction to Dutch imports, in which painters brought an original spontaneity to their work in the freer and more pictorial use of engraving and in the creativity of tile compositions adapted to architectural spaces.
António Pereira, Manuel dos Santos and the monogramist PMP are the most important painters, but António de Oliveira Bernardes and his son Policarpo de Oliveira Bernardes deserve special mention.
An expert in composition, António de Oliveira Bernardes was the master in modelling the figures and the treatment of the surrounding spaces, and with his great technical and artistic ability he was the main person responsible for the most sophisticated creations in Portuguese figurative tiles of the period.
9. Period from 1725 to 1750
Great Joanine production
Large-scale production, due to the increasing number of commissions, carried out by painters trained by the previous generation of masters.
Greater staging, which can be seen in the increasingly complex and cut-out decorations.
This cycle includes painters such as Policarpo de Oliveira Bernardes, Teotónio dos Santos, Valentim de Almeida and Nicolau de Freitas.
18th century – The Great Joanine Production
The second quarter of the 18th century saw an unprecedented increase in the production of tiles, partly due to large orders from Brazil.
This was the period of great production, partly coinciding with the reign of King João V (1706-1750), which led to the use of the largest cycles of historicised panels ever produced in Portugal.
The increase in production led to the repetition of figurations, the use of serial motifs such as albarradas and the simplification of scene painting, with mouldings taking on great scenographic importance.
In an extension of the Masters’ Cycle, painters such as Nicolau de Freitas, Teotónio dos Santos and Valentim de Almeida also stand out for the quality of their work.
In addition to the religious themes commissioned by the Church, the palaces began to use more bucolic, mythological, hunting and war scenes, or those related to everyday court life, as evidenced by the so-called invitation figures placed at the entrances.
10. Period from 1740 to 1790
Rococo tiles
The Rococo language was introduced, mainly in the shells and asymmetrical foliage of the trims, which also returned to colour.
Figurative areas continued to be painted in blue and, more rarely, in manganese. In addition to everyday scenes, there are many examples of chinoiserie.
18th century – The Rococo
In the middle of the century, the tastes of Portuguese society changed with the adoption of a decorative grammar influenced by the French Regency style, but above all by the Rococo, through engravings from Central Europe.
The preference for organic forms, typical of which is the irregular shellac, can be seen in delicate compositions where decorative effects are achieved by using two contrasting shades of blue and then by using different colours.
The figurative panels of this period mostly depict gallant and bucolic scenes from Watteau’s engravings.
The earthquake that destroyed Lisbon in 1755 forced the city to be rebuilt, and for this purpose the pattern was recovered as a means of enlivening an architecture that, due to the urgency of the reconstruction, had become very clean and functional.
This type of tile became known as Pombaline, named after the minister of King José I (reigned 1750-1777) responsible for the reconstruction of Lisbon, the Marquis of Pombal.
In addition to religious themes in churches, small devotional panels or records were very popular, placed on the facades of buildings as protection against major catastrophes.
11. Period from 1770 to 1820
Pombaline pattern and Queen Mary
A return to patterned tiles, with motifs imitating balustrades (and later textiles or wallpaper), with rosettes and florets, organised in complex simulations of light.
The registers of saints, which protected the buildings against natural phenomena, are also a constant of this period.
A return to patterned tiles, with motifs imitating balustrades (and later textiles or wallpaper), with rosettes and florets, organised in complex simulations of light.
The registers of saints, which protected the buildings against natural phenomena, are also a constant of this period.
12. Period from 1780 to 1830
Neoclassical tiles
This style was particularly decorative.
The tiles were reduced in size and used in ashlars, in harmony with the mural paintings, whose theme reflected the function of the room in which they were placed.
The beginning of factory production, with special emphasis on the Real Fábrica de Louça, in Rato (Lisbon).
An expressive trend in decoration.
The tiles were reduced in size and used in blocks that were in harmony with the murals, the theme of which reflected the function of the room in which they were placed. The beginning of factory production, with special emphasis on the Real Fábrica de Louça, in Rato (Lisbon).
18th – 19th centuries – The neoclassical period
At the end of the 18th century, and largely as a result of the Real Fábrica de Louça do Rato in Lisbon, tiles adopted Neoclassicism, an international style popularised by the engravings of Robert and James Adam and associated in Portuguese tiles with the landscapes of Jean Pillement.
The ceramic panels are now low ashlars and articulate with the fresco painting, whose white, unadorned backgrounds stand out, giving them a lightness and a rich variety of themes and compositions that make this production one of the most surprising.
The panels are filled with light, exquisite polychrome ornaments, without any volumetric expression, and the centres are marked with monochrome medallions in calligraphy, according to the taste of the new bourgeoisie, who also became important tile commissioners.
The tiles tell stories of social advancement and represent the elegant figures of the time, while the Church did not abandon the traditional religious cycles and the nobility the themes previously favoured.
13. Period from 1840 to 1900
Façade tiles
Complete cladding of facades, giving colour and brightness to buildings and changing the urban image. The use of patterned tiles produced in various industrial units. There were also figurative facades for specific spaces, such as those by Luís Ferreira, known as Ferreira das Tabuletas (1807-?).
19th century – Tiled facades
With the definitive affirmation of a bourgeoisie linked to commerce and industry, (re)born from the economic chaos in which Portugal was plunged after the French invasions (1807-1811) and the civil war between absolutists and liberals (1832-1834), there was a new use for tiles.
In the second half of the 19th century, cheaper patterned tiles covered thousands of façades, produced by factories in Lisbon – Viúva Lamego, Sacavém, Constância, Roseira – Porto and Gaia – Massarelos, Devezas.
Using semi-industrial or industrial techniques that allow for greater speed and rigour in production, the façades with patterned tiles and frames that define the doors and windows are fundamental elements of Portugal’s urban identity through colour and variations of light.
With factories concentrated mainly in Porto and Lisbon, two sensitivities were defined.
In the north, the use of pronounced reliefs is characteristic, with a taste for volume and the contrast of light and shade; in the south, the smooth patterns of the past are maintained, transferred from the interior to an almost ostentatious external application on the façades.
14. Period from 1890 to 1920
Art Nouveau
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the persistence of 19th-century tiled façades, but also by the appearance of partial or, more rarely, integral Art Nouveau coverings designed specifically for a particular façade.
15. Period from 1900 to 1940
Historicist tiles
Historicist values conveyed by revivalist tiles, with authors such as Jorge Colaço (1868-1842) and Leopoldo Battistini (1865-1936).
Baroque blue and white painting, depicting scenes from national and regional history, as well as popular customs. Sometimes with Art Deco elements, especially in the mouldings.
16. 1950s to 1970s
Modern tiles
Greater articulation between artists and architects, influenced by the International Modern Movement, which arrived in Portugal via Brazil. Tiles were used in new buildings and urban facilities, such as the Lisbon Metro (inaugurated in 1959), in collaboration with Maria Keil, or the Infante Santo Avenue housing estate (1955-1960).
17. Period from 1970 to 2013
Contemporaneity
A wide variety of forms, applications and media. The role of major cultural events in enabling urban regeneration should be highlighted. New ways of articulating tiles and their supports. Cladding of existing structures or tiles used as autonomous works of public art.
History and chronology of Portuguese tiles
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