Art in Lisbon

Throughout the centuries, Portugal's arts have been enriched by foreign influences, including Flemish, French and Italian. The voyages of the Portuguese discoverers opened the country to Oriental influences and the revelation of Brazil's wealth of gold and jewels fed the Baroque flame in decoration. Portuguese culture is based on a past that dates from prehistoric times into the eras of Roman and Moorish invasion. All have left their traces in a rich legacy of archaeological remains, including prehistoric cave paintings at Escoral, the Roman township of Conimbriga, the Temple of Diana in Évora and the typical Moorish architecture of such southern towns as Olhão and Tavira. Lisbon also hosts a great number of remarkable museums of ancient and modern art, some of which are Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, National Museum of Contemporary Art, National Coach Museum, Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and Carmo Archaeological Museum. But, Lisbon isn't all culture and history; Bairro Alto is the center of nightlife with various restaurants and bars where melancholic traditional Portuguese music, Fado, is played.

 

 

Performing Art

Music

Fado is Portugal’s main traditional music. Folk music and dancing, however, also remain as  this country’s fundamental forms of musical expression. The word Fado means fate in Portuguese, however given the sad nature of the music, the word lament is more appropriate. The Fado is Portugal's pride and joy, and the country's national musical treasure. It is also the least accessible form of Portuguese music. When done properly, it is beautiful and touching, when done poorly it can be pompous and self serving. It is a lyrical and sentimental music, and is thought to have its roots in African Slave music. The music has come to be identified with a general sense of frustration and a unique Portuguese fatalism. There are two versions of the Fado. One from Lisbon and the other from Coimbra. Lisbon it is always sung by a solo performer, while in Coimbra it is often performed by groups of male university students. They are accompanied by two guitarists, one playing the melody on a twelve-stringed Portuguese guitar (descendant of the English guitar introduced into Portugal by the British community in Porto in the 19th century), and the other supplying the rhythm on the six-stringed viola. The intensely melancholic songs are usually about love, woes, and pains, or express sadness and longing for things that were lost or that were never accomplished, but in Coimbra, it also occasionally contains humor and political undertones. In the Fado, the singer - the Fadista - stands dressed in black in front of the audience, and behind the Fadista are the musicians. When the Fadista sings a hush falls over the room, and no food is served. Those who love the Fado have an almost worshipful relationship with it.

 

Dance

Each region of Portugal has its own style of dances and songs and the most traditional songs are of a slower rhythm than those in Spain.
Some of the best examples of the regional dances are the Vira, Chula, Corridinho, tirana and fandango, many of which reflect the courting and matrimonial traditions of the area.

 

 

 

 

Still Art

Azulejos

Among the decorative arts, the Portuguese glazed tiles called Azulejos are outstanding. Tiles are everywhere in Portugal. They decorate everything from walls of churches and monasteries, to palaces, ordinary houses, park seats, fountains, shops, and railway stations. They often portray scenes from the history of the country, show its most ravishing sights, or simply serve as street signs, nameplates, or house numbers. Many 16th and 17th century buildings are faced with tiles and the rooms and halls of palaces and mansions exhibit blue and white tiled panels or motifs in other soft colours. Exceptionally fine examples are found in the Pátio da Carranca (pátio = "courtyard") of the Paço de Sintra (Paço = "Palace") at Sintra, São Roque church in Lisbon and the Quinta da Bacalhoa at Vila Fresca de Azeitão near Setúbal.

 

Portuguese Sculpture

This form of art can be best appreciated by studying the magnificent tombs of the 12th and 13th Centuries that are found around Portugal.  Portuguese sculpture has grown in importance over the last 500 years. During the first part of the 16th century, the leading Renaissance sculptors in Portugal were immigrant French masters, working mainly in marble and alabaster. In the late 18th Century, Brazil was the main influence in Portuguese sculpture, noticeable in the increasing Baroque wooden sculptures that appeared during this time, particularly from the hands of the famous Portuguese artist, Joaquim Machado de Castro(1731-1822), who came from Coimbra, where the city's principal museum is named after him. He was trained by José de Almeida and worked under the Italian sculptor Alessandri Giusti (1715-99), who set up a school in Mafra. Machado de Castro's reputation is based on his splendid bronze equestrian statue of Dom José, with attendant figures, which he executed for Praça do Comércio in Lisbon. Worthy examples of Portuguese Neo-classical sculpture can be seen at the royal palaces at Queluz and Ajuda, on the outskirts of the capital. Ajuda Palace was the main centre of Portuguese artistic, architectural and decorative activity during the first quarter of the 19th century.

 

Portuguese Calçada: Art in Cobblestones

One of the endearing hallmarks of Portugal's streets is their decorated pavements. Limestone is hewn into tiny blocks creating beautiful patterned compositions, traditional and modern designs, street numbers, and business logos. Other designs show armillary spheres, caravels and vessels, crosses, stars, and animals. It all started in 1849 after the completion of the wave design known as "the wide sea" in Lisbon's Rossio Square. By the end of that year, the pavements of the Chiado district and Avenida da Liberdade were also completed. Eventually most of Lisbon's streets were paved this way, and it spread throughout the country.

 

Fine Art

The first great age of Portuguese painting was the 15th century. At the end of that century Portugal was one of the largest importers of Flemish paintings, which influenced Portuguese art, but a unique Portuguese style, Manueline, was developed in the early 16th century. It is a style characterized by realism in the composition of the backgrounds, brilliant gem-like colors, and expressive detail. The most celebrated Manueline painter was Grão Vasco, whose paintings are housed in a museum with his name in Viseu. Since the 1990s art galleries have sprouted around Lisbon, and there are a handful of major public and private exhibition spaces.