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Azulejo, Sp.
Arabic, Zulaj, Zuleiek, a varnished tile. ^Enamelled tiles, of Spanish-Moresco manufacture, with which the AUiambra, the Alcazar at Seville, and other Moorish buildings are profusely decorated. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Granada was the favourite place of residence of the Moslem monarchs, who spared no pains or expense to adorn this beautiful city. The fortress and palace of the Alhambra rose in the midst of it, and its towers were adorned with the most exquisite architecture, and its courts paved with tiles or azulejos of the greatest beauty. This building was left to ruin and dilapidation after the expulsion of the Moors by Ferdinand and Isabella, and received afterwards stiU greater injuries from the Spaniards of modem times, as well as from the French, during their late occupation of the Peninsula.
Swinburne, in 1775, describes the blue and yellow tiles, wliich covered the walls to the height of five feet from the ground, as well as the large painted and glazed tHes of the roof, some of wliich still remained. Owen Jones states his opinion that the pavement of the whole of the courts (which is now of stone and various other materials) originally consisted of these tiles, wliich the Spaniards ruthlessly destroyed. He further says, that the pattern appears to have been impressed in the clay by moulds, and the colours run in, in a liquid state, between the lines.[1] Tlie colours employed were, in most cases, primitive ones. (See coloured plate, " Azulejo.") Besides the Alhambra, the Cuarto Eeal, a royal Moorish viUa in Granada, contains wliite tiles covered with the most elaborate designs in scroll-like foliage in gold. These form a band beneath the springing of the roof, and are about .5^ inches square. George Stuart Nicholson, Esq., in a recent visit to Granada, succeeded, after great difficulty, in obtaining the permission of the authorities to make a hasty tracing of one of these tiles. He describes it "as one of a row under the roof of a vestibule in the Cuarto Eeal.' The form he cannot determine, although he believes it to be square, the top being hidden by the bracket-pendants of the roof. The pattern is gold of a greenish tint ; and, as far as he could judge, in the dim light gained from the few windows not blocked up, he imagined the whole to be beneath the glaze. The design, as shown by the woodcut (Fig. 70), which we give from the drawing which he made from the abovementioned tracing, is certainly of the most elaborately beautiful character. In the Alcazar of Seville,[2] specimens of Azulejos, both Moorish and Catholic, are to be seen. Toledo also contains many vestiges of tiles of the Catholic period.[3]
Mr. Ford [4] procured a complete set of Azulejos, chiefly from the Alhambra, while portions of the Moorish saloons of state were being barbarously modernised by the governor. La Serna, in order to convert them into magazines, in which to deposit the food for his galley slaves. They are of various degrees of quality, both as to the material and the painting. The following are descriptions of some of these specimens :
A Tile : Moorish, very fine and most ancient ; surface plain. painted and enamelled, with the arms and motto of the tings of Granada, "There is no conqueror but God/^ The date of its manufacture appears to be about 1300. This tile appears, by another specimen, to have been copied in a very inferior style in 1400.
A Tile : Moorish, fine quality ; pattern a star, to imitate inlaid work. This also appears to have been copied, in a stamped and inferior style, at a later date.
A Tile : Moorish, forming part of the panelling of a dado of a wall, inlaid, fine, and as early as 1600. Tliis has also been copied, in a stamped and inferior style.
A Tile of Spanish manufacture, from the Alcazar of Toledo, previously to the tune of Charles Y., about 1490. The pattern is stamped ; colours white and yellow.
A Tile of the same class, from Toledo, with the arms of Castile and Leon, of the period of Charles Y., about 1525. The pattern is stamped.
In the Mayor's Chapel, at Bristol, there exists a pavement of tiles of Spanish manufacture (Azulejos), wliich were probably imported for this special purpose by some one of the numerous Bristol merchants who had great trafiic with Seville in bottles. They are engraved in " Lyson's Antiquities of Gloucestershire.'^
- ↑ The Moorish tiles are generally painted, the Catholic stamped,
- ↑ "Seville is very rich in this Moorish decoration. Azul and Azulejo are both derived from the Arabic, as are most of the names of colours in Spanish. The use of the Azulejo is very ancient and oriental. The sapphire and blue were always the favourite tints (Exodus, xxiv. 10 ; Isaiah, liv. 11). The best specimens are the dados in the Patio of this Alcazar. Some are Moorish, others of the time of Don Pedro ; next comes the Chapel (1504), and then the most curious portal of Las Monjas de Sa. Paula ; and the summer-house in the Alcazar garden (1546). Those at St. Augustin were designed in 1611, when yellows were all the fashion, and monks and sacred subjects prevalent." Hand- BooJc of Spain, p. 37.
- ↑ The tiles of the Christian period are those manufactured by the Spaniards after the expulsion of the Moors, from whom they learnt the art.
- ↑ Hand-Book of Spain,jjomm, throughout this article.