Simple Gifts
The past year and a half seems to have been filled with over-grim news and events, so when one stumbles on whimsy, art and deeply held beliefs from other times, it is a gift.
Mallorca is filled with discreetly hidden delights in the old, golden-stoned, sturdy farmhouses scattered amid the mountains and across the plains and hills beyond. Red ocre (iron oxide) paintings on the underneath of roof tiles, on the last row of the eaves above the house façade, are one such gem.
At Es Racó d’Arta, the lovely hotel near Arta, there is a wall decorated with a wonderful selection of these historical tiles, now displayed as the art that they truly are.
A wall of painted roof tiles displayed at Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J. Cook
The custom of placing these painted tiles dates from the Middle Ages, but one of the the first dated tile is from August, 1691, in the beautiful mountain village of Fornalutx, in the Soller valley. The paintings were done to decorate the house but also to ward off evil spirits, to invoke protection for the inhabitants of the house from bad weather, misfortune in love or other possible ill luck.
Painted roof tile, Fornalutx (image courtesy of www.ajfornalutx.net/es)
Painted roof tile, Fornalutx (image courtesy of www.ajfornalutx.net/es)
Painted roof tile, Fornalutx (image courtesy of www.ajfornalutx.net/es)
Painted roof tile, Fornalutx (image courtesy of www.ajfornalutx.net/es)
Painted roof tile, Fornalutx (image courtesy of www.ajfornalutx.net/es)
Painted roof tile, Fornalutx (image courtesy of www.ajfornalutx.net/es)
There is also a magnificent collection, numbered and more enigmatically complex, from the eaves of the cloister of Sant Bonaventura in Lluchmayor.
Painted tile from eaves of Sant Bonaventura cloister, Lluchmayor (image courtesy of www.visitllucmajor.com)
Mallorcan resident, Jaume Pinya, teamed up with Dr. Jaume Coll Conesa, director of the National Museum of Ceramics in Valencia, to study these tiles, especially from Fornalutx. One thesis they advanced was that “Apart from them serving as a form of protection, it is quite possible that people believed that if they were to take land from God to build their house on, they should pay some kind of tax. The tiles of Fornalutx are maybe an expression of their gratitude”.
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
As time passed and the owners of homes changed, so the beliefs and thus the styles of paintings, and artists, changed. The heyday of this custom was in the early 1800s, and the custom spread from the Tramuntana mountain villages (Fornalutx, Biniaritx, Soller) to the plains beyond, in villages such as Muro, Binissalem, Esporles or Sancelles.
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook
Each tile that I saw speaks for itself. I delighted in their whimsy and eloquence. It was a wonderful gift from earlier times in Mallorca.
Painted tile, Es Racó d’Arta, photograph J Cook