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  • Spanisch Tiles

  • In 1908/09, at Osthaus’ request, the later architect and director of the Bauhaus School in Dessau, Walter Gropius (born 1883 in Berlin, died 1969 in Boston), arranged for the export of ceramic tiles from Spain to Hagen together with art historian Hans Wendland. Gropius and Osthaus had been in close contact since they first met in Spain in 1908. After abandoning his architecture studies Gropius travelled around Spain, occasionally working in a ceramics workshop in Tirana near Seville. There he produced tile designs which he later sought to use as room decoration in his buildings. Later on Osthaus recommended the architect to van de Velde for the Arts and Crafts School in Weimar, which was to become the Bauhaus. For Osthaus this was his first encounter with Islamic art. He had had the idea while travelling in Tunisia in 1898 to establish not a science museum, but an art and arts & crafts collection. In the art of the Fatimid Caliphate (909 – 1171), which gave rise to Moorish art (11th century – 1492) in Spain, ornamentation had a central religious role. As it was forbidden to glorify Allah in the form of images, geometry was used to symbolize divine wisdom. Whereas the ornamentation of the Fatimids essentially appeared in reliefs and inlays, in the Moorish courtyards in Morocco and Spain ornamentation in coloured tiling design was developed further. Gothic and Italian Renaissance influences also become apparent in later tiling design in Spain. Naturalistic plant motifs started to dominate as of the Christian 16th century, supplanting abstract ornamentation.
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  • Exh_Title_S: Spanisch Tiles
  • Exh_Id: 1,578
  • Exh_Comment_S (Verantw): Archaeology, Global Art, Applied Arts
  • Exh_SpareNField01_N (Verantw ID): 185
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