Viúva de Lamego is not a "local" artist per se but they're a leading artisanal workshop in classic and contemporary Portuguese tiles. If you have the budget, their tailor-made tiles are something else, imagination is the limit. (source: my dad does a lot of house restorations in Portugal and some require custom tiles to fill in missing/damaged areas)
Can second this. Happy customer here. Amazing experience visiting their factory. Seems like a real institution. There were in fact a bunch of artist at the factory working with them there when we visited.
I would love to help, but it's not my domain. I, unfortunately, witness the side-effects of people stealing them on my day to day. There are many shops in Lisbon that sell them, and there's even a beautiful museum here that it's definitely worth visiting (or signing up for a workshop!): https://museunacionaldoazulejo.gov.pt - it's currently closed for renovation; it should reopen later this year, but that's yet to be confirmed.
When buying - on the streets or in a shop - if it looks old, unless provenance is absolutely clear, please don't.
I assumed the word was derived from "azul" but from the article, it's apparently derived from the Arabic الزليج (al-zillīj) and has no relation with "azul"
Portuguese here - many Portuguese words have origin from Arabic as Portugal has been conquered and occupied by "the Moors" in 8th~13th century. That's a long time!
Alentejo, Aljezur, Algarve, and many of the cities in the Southern part of the country have have Arabic origins.
So much so that the controversy over the use of “insha’Allah” by non-Muslims was missed by me, Portuguese has “oxalá”, and I could not understand the problem.
It’s funny how many words we use in Portuguese and Spanish that have their origin in the Moorish time.
Azul 100% comes from Arabic (well Persian, but through Arabic), although I think the specific Andalusian form that was borrowed was a bit different from that.
Lapis Lazuli is cognate, both come from the same Arabic/Persian root. Apparently “azure”, “azul”, “azzurro” lost the L because it got confused with the common “l’” article,
And the word from arabic comes, for both of them comes from persian for hte term lapis lazuli (lāžward) and suposedly this comes from sanskrit... but I ignore how it may sound in sanskrit.
What you call azulejos is basically tilings, which are mostly tiles with geometric patterns (or just a color) covering an area. Azulejo, in the "strict" portuguese (of Portugal) sense are usually a painting in the tiles (not on each individual tile, but on the whole). Mostly a work of art, yes..
By the way, there is also another "infrastructure" element that is used as art in Portugal - calçada portuguesa [1], which is also very interesting.
This is one of those words that can sound exotic, but for the locals would be so plain and uneventful to hear. Kinda like all the Japanese words being used for software project names on Github.
It is staple but not an art. They're just tilings.
What the Spanish, Moroccan and Portuguese do with azulejos / zellij is miles ahead. It is intricate, complex and beautiful.
Those countries just take the think into crazy high levels of beauty. It is not in the same league.
To say that Brazilian azulejos are the same as the Moroccan/Spanish/Portuguese is like saying that a Ferrari Testarosa is the same thing as a VW Beetle (Fusca), that a Fugue by Bach is the same thing as Funk Carioca, that a Crepe Suzette is the same thing as a pancake with orange jelly: technically correct but still absolutely wrong.
I use Zellij and only recently had a colleague tell me that the name comes from Arabic and had not made the link to "Azulejo". It makes sense of course, considering they all refer to some form of tiling :)
I also wanted to see more about the temperature control aspect and was scanning the article for it. Some quick additional searching elsewhere turned up possible effects such as reflective surfaces, thermal mass, and moisture buffering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talavera_de_la_Reina
When buying - on the streets or in a shop - if it looks old, unless provenance is absolutely clear, please don't.
Easy to start, can get quite complex, heartily recommended!
[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/230802/azul
Whenever I want to play with a game engine I reimplement a version of it
How? Why even mention it without a blurb about what that even means?
At least we were taught in school that if a word starts with "al" then there is a big chance it has roots in Arabic.
And also from the Lebanese who immigrated to Brazil in the XX century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebracketing
As a Spanish speaker it seems really hard to believe it's not azul + -ejo. They're literally blue.
By the way, there is also another "infrastructure" element that is used as art in Portugal - calçada portuguesa [1], which is also very interesting.
[1] https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal%C3%A7ada_portuguesa
What the Spanish, Moroccan and Portuguese do with azulejos / zellij is miles ahead. It is intricate, complex and beautiful.
Those countries just take the think into crazy high levels of beauty. It is not in the same league.
To say that Brazilian azulejos are the same as the Moroccan/Spanish/Portuguese is like saying that a Ferrari Testarosa is the same thing as a VW Beetle (Fusca), that a Fugue by Bach is the same thing as Funk Carioca, that a Crepe Suzette is the same thing as a pancake with orange jelly: technically correct but still absolutely wrong.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=zellij+morocco&sxsrf=APpeQns...
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=azulejo+sevillano&udm=2&sxsr...
> Forgejo (pronounced /forˈd͡ʒe.jo/) is inspired by forĝejo, the Esperanto word for forge.