Les teules pintades

• What can Sóller offer you
• Les teules pintades

This peculiar ornamentation that we can observe in some catalogued houses of the Vall de Sóller is one of the few decorative elements of the Mallorcan popular architecture. They consist of scenes and motifs of everyday life engraved on the tiles of the cantilevers of the houses that stand out for their simplicity, which ranges from simple geometric strokes to anthropomorphic or zoomorphic representations without forgetting the Christian symbology. The drawings of the painted tiles were made on a lime background and with strokes of red, green or copper paint.

The "teules pintades" are a popular artistic manifestation that although it had its origins from the 12th century, it was during the 17th and 18th centuries that it reached its maximum splendor. The tiles were decorated the moment the construction of the roof of the building began. The coating was fixed on the cooked piece as it came out of the workshop by a very simple technique: two thirds of the piece was immersed in a lime solution to achieve a homogeneous base and, when it had acquired in a sufficient body, it was painted with pigments dissolved in water: land of red ochre for the color red, chopped coal for the black and copper oxide for the green.

In the Vall de Sóller is where most buildings with painted tiles are preserved. In fact, Sóller, with 56 buildings, and Fornalutx, with 28, are the two municipalities of the island with the highest number of registered buildings with painted tiles.

Apart from the element of properly decorative value, the painted tiles had a symbolic value too, since one of the objectives was to preserve and defend the house and its inhabitants from all kinds of external aggressions.