Azulejos de Lisboa The tiles that line the walls of Lisbon tell the tale of the city and of Portugal. These tiles were once perfectly ordered and neat. Each predictably after the other. They once were certain and stood confidently facing the sun and the sea. But time has designs of its own. It has sought to destroy some and gently wear away at others. Some tiles that were lost could not be replaced. In such places, rather than remove all the tiles and start again, the owners of the buildings simply replaced them with other tiles. This has created a complex patchwork, all the more beautiful for the story it tells. And although the buildings' owners do the best they can, perhaps time is the real architect. Portuguese tiles, known as azulejos, adorn the inside and outside of almost every home in Portugal. Although introduced to Iberia by Moors, the fashion continued after they left. The Moors restricted themselves arabesque geometric patterns of triangles, squares, and diamonds, probably because many of them belonged to the Sunni brach of Islam which prohibited images of living things. Portuguese and Flemish artists began to produce tiles in Lisbon in the 16 th Century. | |
|