The azulejo, by technique: how to tell a cut mosaic from a pressed ridge from a painted face

By Rafe Calder

An azulejo is a tile. That is the short answer. The longer answer is that the word has changed its meaning at least once, and the technique that made the tile decides what it looks like.

The word

The sources give two readings of the Arabic root. Wikipedia says azulejo comes from the Arabic al-zillīj, meaning “polished stone”, because the early aim was to imitate Byzantine and Roman mosaics. Britannica writes the root as al-zulayj, “little stone”. The two spellings and meanings differ, and we do not choose. Britannica adds that the term first referred only to North African mosaics and later came to mean a fully decorated tile, roughly 13 to 15 centimetres square.

Cut mosaic first

According to Wikipedia, the earliest azulejos, in the thirteenth century, were mosaic panels called alicatados, made of single-colour tiles cut into geometric shapes. Britannica puts the start of production in the fourteenth century. The two statements do not have to conflict: one is about cut-tile mosaic and the other about the decorated tile. Neither says so. Seville, Wikipedia says, became the major centre of the Hispano-Moresque tile industry, and examples appear in the Alhambra in Granada and in the fourteenth-century sections of the Alcázar of Seville in Mudéjar style. UNESCO’s listing of the cathedral, Alcázar and Archivo de Indias, inscribed in 1987, says the Palacio de Pedro I represents Spanish Mudéjar art. The page we read does not mention tiles.

The dry cord

Cuerda seca, “dry cord”, is a way of applying coloured glazes. Wikipedia explains that water-soluble glazes tend to run together in the kiln, so the potter separates them with thin lines of a greasy substance, usually mixed with a dark pigment such as manganese carbonate. Each coloured area ends up outlined in a dark line. Wikipedia says many scholars think it developed mainly in al-Andalus in the second half of the tenth century, during the Umayyad period, though it calls the origin uncertain, and says the technique advanced in the eleventh century. It also traces the method east, across Central Asia and Turkey, which is outside the Spanish story. The Azulejo article calls cuerda seca an older technique that the arista method resembled.

The pressed ridge

Wikipedia describes arista, also called cuenca, as a late fifteenth and early sixteenth century method. A mould pressed into the unbaked tile left clay ridges that kept the colours from bleeding, which made it more efficient for mass production. Our reading: that ridge does the job the dark line does in cuerda seca, which is to keep two glazes apart. Wikipedia does not say this in so many words, but it describes both with the same purpose.

The painted face

Majolica, Wikipedia says, was brought to Seville by Italian potters in the early sixteenth century and allowed more figurative themes. It says Francisco Niculoso settled in Seville in 1498, and one image caption dates an Alcázar chapel work to 1504. It spells the name Francesco in one caption. Those look like the same man, but the page does not state that. Casa de Pilatos, it adds, has around 150 azulejo designs from the 1530s, though the page also describes early sixteenth-century decoration there. The dates may refer to different phases, and the page does not say.

Valencia and Manises

Wikipedia says Manises has alfardones tiles dated about 1420, and that the Sala Nova of the Palau de la Generalitat Valenciana in Valencia has tiles made in 1575. We found nothing in the sources about how Manises production compared with Seville’s.

Triana and the museum

Wikipedia’s article on the Triana district of Seville says Triana has a traditional pottery and tile industry and was traditionally populated by sailors, potters, construction workers and artisans. The Fábrica de Cerámica Santa Ana, a Moorish Revival building on the north side of the neighbourhood, now partly houses the Centro Cerámica Santa Ana, a pottery museum that opened in 2014. The page does not say when the tile industry began or how the tiles were made, and it does not mention a Cartuja factory.

Across the border

Wikipedia credits King Manuel I of Portugal with introducing the techniques after visiting Seville in 1503. Britannica gives a longer story: in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Portugal imported tiles from Spain, around 1550 Flemish artists in Lisbon tried making tiles, and during the reigns of Philip II, III and IV Portugal’s tile industry became independent of Spain. It says Spanish production nearly stopped in the eighteenth century. Portuguese exports to the Azores, Madeira and Brazil began in the seventeenth century, and from about 1690 to 1750, the peak of popularity, many walls were covered with continuous picture tiles. Wikipedia adds that the National Museum of the Azulejo is in Lisbon.

Reading a tile

Put the sources together and a simple key appears. Our reading, not a claim in any single source: a cut mosaic is built from single-colour pieces; a cuerda seca tile has dark lines between its colours; an arista tile has raised ridges between them; and a majolica tile has a painted face that can carry a figure. Any real tile may combine these or have been restored, so a key is a starting point, not a test. We found no source that says how to tell a handmade tile from a printed one, and we give no authentication advice.

Dates in order

10th century, second half: cuerda seca probably develops in al-Andalus, according to Wikipedia.
13th century: first alicatado mosaic panels, according to Wikipedia.
14th century: production begins, according to Britannica; Mudéjar sections of the Seville Alcázar, according to Wikipedia.
About 1420: alfardones tiles at Manises, according to Wikipedia.
1498: Niculoso settles in Seville, according to Wikipedia.
1503: Manuel I of Portugal visits Seville, according to Wikipedia.
1575: tiles in the Sala Nova, Valencia, according to Wikipedia.
1690 to 1750: peak of popularity in Portugal, according to Britannica.

Side by side

Root meaning: “polished stone” (Wikipedia) against “little stone” (Britannica). Start of the tile: thirteenth-century mosaic (Wikipedia) against fourteenth-century production (Britannica). Portugal’s start: after Manuel I’s 1503 visit (Wikipedia) against imports from Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Britannica). We show them and choose none.

What kind of sources these are

Wikipedia, which anyone can edit, across four pages; Britannica, an encyclopaedia; and UNESCO’s listing for Seville. We found no museum, workshop or guild page we could read, so the technique descriptions are encyclopaedia summaries.

Questions a buyer would ask

Is the tile cut, outlined, ridged or painted? Is it a restored old tile or a modern copy of an old pattern? Where was it made? We name no workshop and give no prices.

What we left out

We left out the religious buildings the tiles decorate, the São Luís listing in Brazil, and the colonial tile trade across the Atlantic, none of which our Spanish sources covered. We left out Central Asian and Turkish tile history, and the one scholar’s suggestion about outside influence on early cuerda seca, because it came from a single line. We left out the sums, sizes and prices of any tile.

Quick answers

What does azulejo mean? Wikipedia says it comes from the Arabic al-zillīj, “polished stone”; Britannica gives al-zulayj, “little stone”. Britannica says a decorated azulejo is roughly 13 to 15 centimetres square.

What is cuerda seca? According to Wikipedia, a technique that separates coloured glazes with thin lines of a greasy substance mixed with a dark pigment, so each colour is outlined in a dark line.

What is an arista tile? Wikipedia says a mould pressed into unbaked clay left ridges that kept the colours from bleeding, a method of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

Roam first. Shop later.

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