Artfully living traditions-in_urban_art-portugal-july2013

Living traditions in urban art:
Portuguese pavement art,
the “Calçada Portuguesa”
& the practice of tile painting or
“Azulejo”
Beth Jackson, Director & Curator, Artfully
LIVING TRADITIONS IN URBAN ART, PORTUGAL, JULY 2013artfully

LIVING TRADITIONS IN URBAN ART, PORTUGAL, JULY 2013
Stone pavement is an art
with a long history. Romans
are the most well known for
this kind of work, both
inside and outside
buildings, made with
intricate, beautiful and
colourful designs but, in
Portugal, it wasn't only the
Romans that influenced this
kind of work, Arabian
occupation of the territory,
was also important to the
development of such
techniques.
artfully

One of the most important reasons
for this kind of pavement was to
prevent mud on the floor and
streets because the space between
stones lets the rain water to be
absorbed, but there are other
advantages like its durability, and
its ease and affordability to repair.
The Portuguese pavement is a
decorative art applied in most of
the sidewalks around the country
and it's former colonies.

In 1842, military commander Eusebius
Furtado ordered inmates in the Castelo
de São Jorge, a Lisbon prison, to cover
its courtyard with a zig‐zag pattern of
tiles. The design used on that floor was
a simple layout, but for the time, the
work was somewhat unusual, causing
the Portuguese chroniclers to write
about it and attracting so much
attention, not only in Portugal, that it
was the subject of one of the world’s
earliest photographs by Louis Daguerre.
Castelo de S. Jorge, 1842 by Louis Jaques Daguerre

Seven years later, Furtado was
given a commission to pave the
whole area of Rossio Square, in
Lisbon centre, with a wavy pattern
known as “the wide sea”. After
this, the use of calçadas was made
mandatory for all new paving
projects in the Portuguese capital.
The cobblestone quickly spread
throughout the country and
colonies and Portuguese masters
were asked to perform and teach
these works abroad, creating
authentic masterpieces in
pedestrian areas.

Until the early 20th century, designs were made by the
craftsmen themselves, the "calceteiros", that were
inspired by traditional motifs like armillary spheres, ships,
compass roses, ropes, crosses, crowns, crests, emblems,
ocean waves, seaweed, starfish, anchors, stylized animals
and birds, dolphins and crabs. In the fifties designs began
to be made by architects and artists.

The mosaics require backbreaking
labour to maintain, making the
traditional art of the calceteiros both
rare and expensive. It's an arduous
labour, where long hours are spent
painstakingly laying the stones in a
prostrated position.
At right: the image of the Saint Queen
Elizabeth of Portugal, in Coimbra,
designed with black and white stones of
basalt and limestone.

In November 1986, the Lisbon City
Council created the School of
pavers in order to renew the actual
crew of pavers and promoting the
art of paving. Other cities around
the country also initiated formation
projects in order to train
professional men and women,
hoping to ensure the "survival" of
cobblestone.

Tiles (called azulejos) are
everywhere in Portugal. They
decorate everything from walls of
churches and monasteries, to
palaces, ordinary houses, park
seats, fountains, shops, and
railway stations. They often
portray scenes from the history of
the country, show its most
ravishing sights, or simply serve as
street signs, nameplates, or house
numbers.

Although they are not a
Portuguese invention (the use of
glazed tiles began in Egypt), they
have been used more
imaginatively and consistently in
Portugal than in any other nation.
They became an art form, and by
the 18th century no other
European country was producing
as many tiles for such a variety of
purposes and in so many different
designs. Today, they still remain a
very important part of the
country's architecture.

After the Gothic period, most
large buildings had extensive areas
of flat plaster on their interior
walls, which needed some form of
decoration. These empty
architectural spaces produced the
art of the fresco in Italy, and in
Portugal, the art of the azulejo.

The term azulejo comes from the Arabic
word az‐zulayj, meaning "polished stone."
The Moors brought this term to the Iberian
Peninsula, but despite their long presence,
their influence in early Portuguese azulejos
was actually introduced from Spain in the
15th century, well after the Christian
reconquest. No tile work from the time of
the Moorish occupation survives in
Portugal.
King Manuel I was dazzled by the
Alhambra in Granada (Spain), and decided
to have his palace in Sintra decorated with
the same rich ceramic tiles. The first ones
were imported from Seville, and in
accordance to Islamic law, they portrayed
no human figures, only geometric patterns.

Gradually the Portuguese painters weaned
themselves off ornamental decoration and
employed human or animal figures in their
designs. The dominant colors were blue,
yellow, green and white, but in the 17th
century, large, carpet‐like tiles used just white
and blue, the fashionable colors at the time of
the Great Discoveries, influenced by the Ming
Dynasty porcelain from China. They now
portrayed Christian legends, historical events,
and were not only decorative, but also
protected against damp, heat and noise.

Photos by Artfully
Text from:
Portuguese pavement art, the "Calçada Portuguesa"
http://margaridab.hubpages.com/hub/Portuguese‐
pavement‐art‐the‐Calada‐Portuguesa#
&
AZULEJOS: The Art of Portuguese Ceramic Tiles
http://www.golisbon.com/culture/azulejos.html

www.artfully.com.au

Artfully living traditions-in_urban_art-portugal-july2013

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