Moorish and Mediterranean tiles

Moorish tiles and Mediterranean tiles/ceramics were designed, and manufactured by Niculoso Pisano, a ceramist from Florence. He settled in Seville in the late 15th century. He made the town flourish, mastered the technique of the flat Mediterranean wall tiles, also called Pisano wall tiles, and introduced new embellishments. Result: a new school in the Triana painters’ studios. The façade of the ‘Santa Paula’ church in Seville, in which white and red brick and glazed Moorish tiles in various colours were used, with images of human and animal figures, corn-stalks, fruit, etc on a mainly yellow background, dates from the year 1504. On the altarpiece of ‘El Alcázar’ (the fort) of Seville various Moorish tiles are used in colours like green, honey, blue, black, light and dark yellow, purple and pink. A masterly example of Renaissance Mediterranean tiles is the sanctuary altarpiece of the Holy Virgin Maria of Tentudia from Calera de León (Badajoz), made by Niculoso in 1518.

In the late 16th century the production of Mediterranean tiles in the whole of Spain deteriorates and in the 17th century with the expulsion of the Moriscos (Muslims converted to Christians) it even disappears completely. With the arrival of the Bourbon family the earthenware and the production of Moorish tiles rises again, which will contribute to the revival of the Moorish tiles later on. With the expulsion of the French in the 19th century and in the shadow of the earthenware factories of Alcora (Castile), Manises (Valencia), Talavera (Toledo) and Triana (Seville) an important growth in the number of factories and consequently the production of tiles starts. The earthenware was still baked in the Moorish kilns. The factories that did not modernize their technique disappeared because they were not competitive enough. After the collapse as a result of the Civil War, the recovery was very slow. The ‘pass through’ kilns were a common fact, mechanical presses were introduced, grinding machines for earth appeared and furnace oil was introduced as a fuel for the kilns. The fifties were dominated by the expansion of Mediterranean tiles; this meant the end to the international blockade, and brought a period of boom through the export to the American market and the increasing national demand for the National Building Scheme. But the profits were not reinvested in the modernization of existing tile factories, so that in a very short period of time it became impossible to compete with countries where money was invested in new technologies, like Italy.

The period of 1960 to 1973 is a dark period for the Moorish tile industry. Many factories that had not made the change from Moorish kilns to modernized kilns were closed down. There are more than enough examples. In the early 60’s there were 40 companies, big and small, in Triana. In 1973 only 4 were left that could produce the right kind of tiles. There was another important incident; in 1963 the first two tunnel kilns were introduced in Spain. The first one in Betxi (Castile) and the second one in Santiponce (Seville). But while pit with qualitatively good clay were discovered in Castile, in large quantities and at a low price, there were no such pits in Seville and the pits that were there only had clay of bad quality at a high price. The industrialization of this Moorish tiles industry was now concentrated in Castile. Using the prosperous circumstances within the ceramics industry in the 70s, the tunnel kilns were finally introduced both for baking the unglazed tiles once and for the glazed earthenware. They were running on furnace oil. The automatic presses were also a tremendous success. The production was increased and the quality and export became ever more important to the industry. With the oil crisis in 1973 started a new development in the tile industry, the improvement of production costs. The principles of capacity for work became just as important a part as the manpower. Imaginative powers had to be used; petrol became the engine of development. By changing from furnace oil to natural gas it became possible to use ‘monostrate’ kilns in general and whenever it was wanted. The absence of sulphur and the possibility to control the fire at low temperatures was just over.

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