Cut From The Earth

Chapter 2

Wealth and extravagance ruled mid-eighteenth-century Portugal due to gold and precious gem extraction from its colony, Brazil, as well as the slave trade from Africa. While the Inquisition enforced its medieval Catholicism throughout the country, other parts of Europe embraced the Enlightenment.

The Inquisition sought to root out heresy against the Church, and to persecute those who did not adhere to Catholic orthodoxy. Conversely, the Enlightenment’s objective was to reform society with reason and to advance knowledge through science and intellectual exchange, instead of relying on faith and revelation as promoted and controlled by the Church.

During this time, the art form of tile making flourished with Portugal’s peerless affluence and produced one of the greatest world-wide advancements in tile creation: the figura de convite, a life-sized cut-out of a human figure. These elegantly dressed figures of a nobleman, lady, or footman were placed at the entrances to palaces, on stair-landings, and patios to welcome visitors. For the first time in the history of tile fabrication, the medium deviated from the square composition and embraced the outline of human form. This innovation is attributed to an eighteenth-century Portuguese tile maker, known only by the monogram PMP. Though PMP’s works can still be viewed today in Lisbon, the artist’s identity and life story remain a mystery.

figura de convite, . Cut from the Earth imagines the lost story of the master tile artist PMP, beginning in the fateful months before the Great Lisbon Earthquake erupted on November 1st, All Saints Day, in 1755.

Cut from the Earth