The Ancient Origins of Spanish Ceramic Tiles
Though ceramic tile has become a quintessential element in modern Spanish and Spanish Colonial architecture, its roots dig deep into the ancient cultures of the Middle East. Introduced to the Maghreb and Iberian Peninsula after the Muslim conquest, painted tin-glazed terracotta tile would revolutionize Spanish architecture.
Glazed hand-painted terracotta as ornament in Mesopotamia
The use of glazed terracotta as a decorative element dates back to that cradle of human civilization known as Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamians gave us the wheel, one of the oldest codes of law and innovations in irrigation that led to the rise of agriculture and the permanent human settlements we call home today.
Hand-painted Assyrian wall tile, 8 century BC, British Museum
More than 800 years before the Christian era, the Mesopotamians were already producing excellent glazed murals. This wall tile found in Nimrud shows what would become one of the most enduring motifs in Portugues and Spanish mosaics, the endless knot.
The Alhambra’s Sala de los Abencerrajes features a 16th century Spanish tile mosaic where hand-painted the endless-knot motif forms frieze above the tableau below.
Above, our glazed ceramic tile Tirabuzón features the variation of the endless knot motif.
Polychrome enamelled brick with motifs in relief in Babylon
Closer to our time, we can point to the Great Gate of Ishtar with its enamelled terracotta in cobalt blue and sea green, decorated with more than 500 dragons and bulls in relief, also made of painted brick, this time in shades of yellow. Built in the 6th century to guard the entrance of the great city of Babylon, this gate was meant to awe and it still does.
This ancient color palette of blue, green, black, white and yellow would persist in the East, and in Hispano-Arab art for centuries.
The Great Gate of Ishtar, Berlin Museum
In the 8th century, Babylon which sits in present-day Iraq, fell under the same caliphate as al-Andalus, the area of Muslim conquest in Spain and Portugal.
This Byzantine dome in Cordoba’s mosque features hand-painted polychrome tile on the border of the central motif, an 8-pointed rosette. Source: 1881 drawing by Mariano Fuster, Academia Colecciones
Glazed ceramic tile decorates Cordoba’s mosque
By the 10th century, glazed terracotta was still a discreet decorative accent in Hispano-Arab architecture. Though the dome over the mihrab in Cordoba’s mosque is visually staggering, it owes its colorful palette to the 200 square meters of Byzantine mosaic in glass and marble tesserae.
Hand-painted terracotta tiling only makes a shy contribution.
A small band of tile adorns the edge of the rosette, the central motif in the cupola. Molded to fit the curvature of the rosette, these fired clay tiles bear a schematic vegetal motif that looks like a palm frond, a decorative element we would find repeated in many forms in Portuguese and Spanish architecture.
Detail of dome in Cordoba’s mosque. Source: Antonio Entrena Aznarte, Retablo Cerámico
Colorful terracotta tile becomes a major element in Hispano-Arab architecture
In the East, turquoise tiles served to underline kufic script on buildings as seen in Jam Mosque in Afghanistan or to highlight the top of a tower as in the Kalyan Minaret in Uzbekistan, a spartan structure that stands out against the rest of the 15th century mosque complex next to it.
We see the same trend emerge in the Maghreb. The Kutubiya Mosque in Marrakech still boasts two panels of green-blue ceramic tile in the balcony and spire of its minaret. The minaret of the Kasbah Mosque contains several elements that would become mainstays in Spanish architectural ornamentation in the next century: the multifoil arch, the persistent use of the blue palette, the ubiquitous sebka, and Solomon’s Seal.
12th century minaret of the Kasbah Mosque in Marrakech; La Giralda, a minaret built in Sevilla 5 years later
A frieze of blue-green and white zellige tiles wraps around the balcony of Kutubiya’s minaret. Each tile bears the 8-pointed star or Solomon’s seal. For a similar effect, try our Terracota Estrella tile.
The body of the structure also boasts a large block of turquoise ceramic tile over which sits a panel of sebka, a geometric motif similar to palmette found in Egyptian and classical Greek art.
In Spain, Sevilla’s 12th century minaret La Giralda features the same sebka. Clearly drawing inspiration from older mosques like the Kasbah Minaret, La Giralda would have been an impressive structure towering over the city. Unfortunately it lost the tiles that decorated it, suffered significant damage in the 1396 earthquake and subsequent structural changes that attempted to christianize the tower.
The scalloped arches at the base of the minaret would become synonymous with Moorish architecture in southern Spain. We find them in Córdoba’s Mosque, Granada’s Alhambra and Sevilla’s Alcázar.
The Nasrids of southern Spain embrace vibrant polychrome tile mosaics
Until the mid-13th century, most Spanish terracotta tiles were cobalt blue, turquoise, green, white or black — colors that were already popular in the East and in the Maghreb.
When we think of vibrant expansive Hispano-Arab mosaics, we are thinking of the Nasrids. Rulers of al-Andalus, the last bastion of Muslim rule on the peninsula, they built the fortified palatine city of the Alhambra where their architects explored the full polychrome possibilities of tile mosaics.
Using the same zellige technique —which we call alicatado in Spain— the Nasrids created increasingly complex geometric compositions, a legacy that Spanish artisans continue to nurture today.
Detail of Spanish tile mosaic in Sala de las Dos Hermanas, Alhambra
One of the oldest examples of Nasrid architecture is the Cuarto Real de Santo Domingo, built in the mid-13th century in Granada. Here, the old palette of cool tones persists: blues, black, white, and a precious detail in hand-painted lusterware. However, specks of orange in the border tiles and brown in the geometric designs behind the kufic script foreshadow the changes to come.
By the 14th century, we find tile mosaics of thin, minute pieces like this wainscot in the room above where warmer tones —yellows and oranges— liven up the old palette.
Though first used timidly to highly key architectural features, tin-glazed tile mosaic would become a characteristic feature in construction.
Hispano-Arab tile mosaic is the bedrock of the modern Spanish azulejo tradition.
Though younger generations of artisans absorbed influences from the Italian Rennaissance, the Nasrid legacy remains the foundation of the craft, inspiring new techniques like cuerda seca and arista.
See our traditional Spanish tiles for more.
