Google Arts and Culture:
An identitary art. A world heritage. Understand the Portuguese “azulejo” and why it is such a unique decorative language.
Islamic culture was the first great reference for azulejos in Portugal, which lived on in future applications through the aesthetic taste conveying the horror vacui or “fear of the empty”.
These tiles are presented at the National Azulejo Museum in Lisbon, Portugal where I’ll be in March of this year leading a “Photo Tourism” workshop. Not only are the tiles spectacularly beautiful, the presentation by the Google website is very well done.
Indeed, it is beautiful.
I live in Lisbon.
I believe Islamic influence in Europe in so, so much neglected, In Venice it is all over the place, but most people pretend not to notice.
Lucky you – I’m really excited to visit Lisbon in March!