Un reportage da Lisbona di Kathleen Beckett per il New York Times (alt) riferisce delle Journées Européennes des Métiers d’Art, o Giornate Europee dell’Artigianato, che fino al 7 aprile scorso hanno visto gli atelier di tutto il paese dedicati alla lavorazione del legno, alla tessitura, alla gioielleria, alla legatoria e alla pittura, aprire le loro porte al pubblico.

Non potevano mancare gli azulejos, piastrelle di ceramica decorate e utilizzate per rivestire pareti e pavimenti. Questi colorati manufatti sono parte integrante della cultura portoghese e hanno una storia che risale a secoli fa.

Gli azulejos hanno origini arabe e sono stati introdotti in Portogallo durante il periodo della dominazione moresca. Il termine azulejo deriva dall’arabo “al zuleique”, che significa “pietra lucida”. Le piastrelle azulejos sono spesso decorate con motivi geometrici, floreali o figurativi. I colori vivaci e i dettagli intricati rendono questi manufatti unici. Gli azulejos sono stati utilizzati per decorare chiese, palazzi, case e stazioni ferroviarie in tutto il Portogallo.
Nel Rinascimento, gli azulejos divennero sempre più elaborati, con scene storiche, mitologiche e religiose. Negli ultimi anni, gli azulejos hanno vissuto una rinascita grazie ad artisti e designer portoghesi che reinterpretano il tradizionale stile azulejo, creando nuovi modelli e applicazioni.

The azulejos were painted in many colors based in metal oxide — green from copper, purple from manganese, white from tin, brown or orange from iron; the paints were toxic and eventually banned from use in the 1980s, Dr. Pais (direttore del Museu Nacional do Azulejo  di Lisbona n.d.r.). The ancient colors would not be revealed until after the azulejos came out of the kiln. Until then, “the colors all looked gray,” Dr. Pais said, and the painter had to rely on experience to know what colors to work with and how to apply them in various thicknesses to get the desired result.

Anche My Modern Met parla di azulejos, in un articolo di Arnesia Young che ne descrive l’evoluzione storica:

During the early to mid 16th century, the Portuguese mainly relied on foreign imports of tile from Seville in the south, and on a smaller scale from Antwerp in the north. It was during this time that potters from Italy had established workshops in Seville, and they brought with them the maiolica techniques—a form of tin-glazing pottery that allowed them to represent more varied and figurative subjects and themes on their tile compositions—and also the influence of the Italian Renaissance and Mannerist styles. This development in the technique sparked a shift from solely repetitious patterns and elevated it into a form of artistic creation where the tile was painted on as if it were a wood panel or canvas. Consequently, most of the tiles began to depict allegorical and mythological portrayals of the lives of saints and scenes from the Bible as well as hunting scenes. Now, instead of craftsmen creating repetitive patterns with the tiles, artists were painting them as large-scale panels and signing their names to the creations.

Viúva Lamego è una fabbrica situata in un parco industriale alla periferia di Sintra, una popolare destinazione turistica a meno di 20 miglia a nord-ovest di Lisbona:

At Viúva Lamego, the word “tiles” is freely used, according to Catarina Morais Cardoso, director of marketing. Making them, she said, starts with clay: “We own our own clay quarry.” It arrives premixed as slabs, which are rolled out into sheets of varying thicknesses, depending on their intended use, by a machine resembling a large pasta maker. The sheets of clay are then chopped into squares and prepared for firing in a kiln, painting by hand, firing again, cooling and a final quality check. This all happens in a space the size of an airplane hangar, filled with racks stacked with thousands of tiles in various stages of production and hauled from machine to machine by forklifts. The factory has the capacity to produce 25,000 tiles a day.

The art of the azulejos è invece un video a cura di DWEuromaxx che racconta di questa forma di artigianato portoghese e del modo in cui queste ceramiche vengono prodotte: The Art Of The Azulejos – Portugal’s Colored Tiles (youtube.com)