Tiled buildings and murals of Portugal

Azulejos

I was fascinated by the beautiful murals that adorn every street corner and most of the forts and museums. This is what I learned about the history of the Portuguese tiles, known as azulejos. They 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 branch of Islam which prohibited images of living things. Portuguese and Flemish artists began to produce tiles in Lisbon in the 16^th Century. Blue and yellow were the favorite color combination and tiles depicted mostly floral patterns or religious scenes. The ever expanding Portuguese empire provided increasingly more exotic themes and colors.

After the earthquake of 1755 there was a return to multi-colored tiles. It was about this time too that the Portuguese in Brazil discovered that tiles were ideal for keeping out the damp. In the rebuilt Lisbon houses were encased in tiles, and this tradition continues today. These are some of the murals and tiled houses I seen in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra.