Azulejos of Portugal: 2019 Edition
In 2015 I put up a series about Portuguese tile art on this website. The article is still one of the most clicked on here. A couple of years later I want to start the year with coming back to the topic and showing more of these magnificent Azulejos, as they are called. This time around though they are not as clean and shiny, they are more washed out, sprayed, beaten and even rusty. They tell stories of everyday life in Portugal, how nature blends in with them and how street artists use them as canvas.
ecorative building façades composed of thin-glazed ceramic tiles are considered a national art form in Portugal with a long historic tradition dating back to Arabic times. In Português they are called “Azulejos”, most probably stemming from the Arabic “al zulaij” meaning small polished stone. In fact the technique was adapted from Moorish decorative art in the early 16th century and gained popularity quickly in the aspiring Portuguese architecture of the time. Still today many houses as well as churches are decorated with these beautiful works of art produced over time by many tile maker workshops in different parts of the country (and in other Portuguese speaking countries around the world like Brazil). Probably there are almost as many patterns as there are Bacalhau receipts, but maybe that’s slightly exaggerated 😉 Interestingly though their use is not purely decorative in nature but the tiles also have practical gains as they help to control the temperature within the covered buildings.
Michael Hoffman Photography 