Walking into Walls

Strolling along the beautiful patterned walkways of Lisbon, one eventually comes to a wall -- that is, tile walls -- for which the Portuguese are known worldwide.

Tile making, or azulejos, probably comes from the Arabic word azure which means 'smooth surface.'  It's hard to put a date on when the Portuguese became the most renowned tile makers in the world because azulejos came to Portugal via Moorish influence (dominance) well over 1,000 years ago -- and Spanish influence (dominance) about 500 years ago.

Both cultures contributed a diverse style of tile making, which was really, in its primitive state, just "wall making" -- designed to keep out rebellious subjects.  I stood for a long time at this crude Moorish wall that surrounds what is now called St. George's Castle, built on the highest peak in Lisbon by the conquering Moors around 800 A.D.   Today it is a popular lookout post for lackadaisical peacocks.  Some areas of the fortress date to the 4th century.

Moorish design is characterized by geometrical patterns and extensive symmetry. Early examples were devoid of color because the technique for using color was not devised until the late 1500s.

The technique for color, called maiolica, came to Portugal through Spain -- and to Spain through Mesopotamia in the 9th century -- and to Mesopotamia from China. Color led to an outpouring of patterns and creativity . . .

Blue and white is considered to come from the influence of Chinese ceramics, brought back to Portugal through India after Vasco da Gama famously discovered the trade route to India and Asia in the late 1400s.

The most humble of restaurants and pastry shops is graced with tile wall patterns, both inside and outside.  This is the exterior wall of a tiny restaurant called "Istanbul Pizza Shop."

This exterior wall graces one restaurant on a tiny island in the Tagus River, the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula.  It runs east to west through Spain, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Lisbon.  As we sat outside and ate salted dried codfish and drank vinho verde wine,  I wondered what significance those petite floral patterns held -- because, as I came to learn, virtually everything in Portugal carries symbolic significance.   The interior walls were just as beautiful as the exterior.

No place shows the diverse styles of tile making more than at Pena Palace, which is located about 45 miles from Lisbon.  This was the summer palace for the Royal Court through 1,000 years of history and changing regimes -- beginning of course with the Moors in medieval times, and ending with the rein of Don Manuel II in 1910.  Each regime, or conquerer,  preserved the existing artistry of the palace, but added its own "updated" style -- therefore it is a panoply of architectural and tile making history.

Legend is just as important (and real) to the Portuguese as documented history.  We were told by a native Lisboan that "if it happened in Portugal, there is a legend for it."  And if there is a legend for it, she added, there is probably something built to commemorate it . . . to honor it . . .
Tile making is one very useful mode of expression to catalogue the nation's identity. Symbolic representations of the country's folklore, legends, heroes, and history are literally spread out on the walls for citizens to absorb daily.  Perhaps history books for young children are optional!

I was strangely drawn to a circular pattern with a knot in the center, which I later learned is called arbiter esfera, or the armillary sphere.  It is a symbol of the constellations, but representative of the nation's great seafaring history.  In its glory days, beginning in the late 1400s when Vasco da Gama discovered the trade route to India, Portugal dominated the Indian Ocean and therefore economic trade for well over a century.

I could not bring home a wall of tiles, or even take pictures of all the walls I loved, but I settled for three beautiful tiles which caught my eye (and would not let me go home without them). I found them in an antique store just down the steep hill from the old Moorish castle that overlooks modern day Lisbon. They date to 1750, which means they were crafted before the catastrophic 9.0 earthquake of 1755 which devastated the nation and left it in ruins for nearly a century.  

The antique dealer from whom I bought these tiles noted that he had never seen a pattern such as the third one shows -- "not even in tile museums," he said.  As I contemplate that third tile from my seat at the kitchen table at home, I surmise that it may have been the singular experiment of a woman who was not really a tile maker by trade -- perhaps her husband or father or brother was a tile maker -- and perhaps she had an idea for a trellis type design which she had got from observing the way vines grow along a fence outside her kitchen window or along the tiled walkway on her way to market -- and maybe her father or brother or husband said it was not such a good design because it had never been done before -- and so she stopped making tiles after that first one -- but somehow this tile survived the catastrophic earthquake of 1755 -- though maybe she did not -- and maybe she had a bit of Moorish or Arabic blood in her from long ago -- because, when I sit back and look at this tile long enough, those vines begin to look like Arabic writing . . .