Tile

Floor Tiles.

Except as small fragments of tile occur in clas sic mosaic (q.v.) and terrazzo, tile for floors does not seem to have been common in Europe prior to the z 2th century. In the late 12th and i3th centuries, however, tile floors became usual in churches and other important buildings. The most com mon type consisted of square tile in two colours, usually a dark brown-red and a pale orange or brownish yellow. They were made by casting clay in such a manner that the parts to be in a lighter colour were sunk; when dry, these parts were filled with a clay of different composition which would burn to a lighter colour; the tile thus prepared was then burned. Patterns were formed of many tiles and consisted usually of circles or stars containing heraldic beasts, ecclesiastical symbols, etc. ; in many cases the pattern was made with reversed colours, so that what was back ground colour in one tile was ornament colour in the one next it. In the earliest examples designs were formed by a mosaic treat ment in which the pattern was made by the shape and size of the individual tiles, as in the 13th century example found at Foun tains abbey and at Prior Crauden's chapel at Ely (1321-41), both in England. Other common types of mediaeval pavement have the pattern merely incised, producing the artistic effect of a sketch.

The development of floor tiles in Gothic France was similar. The 12th century examples are usually mosaic in type with black, dark green, light green and yellow as the predominating colours. The richest examples of these are in the abbey church of S. Denis, near Paris, where certain elaborate, chapel floor pavements still exist from the original building by Abbott Suger (114o-44). By the end of the century, mosaic had yielded to two-coloured tiles of red and yellow, similar to the English tiles mentioned above. The same type remained constant until well into the 15th century, the designs becoming continuously thinner and more delicate; in the 16th century the art died out, supers6ded by the painted maiolica pavements of Renaissance feeling.

The Gothic revival of the middle igth century led, in England, to the revival of the designing and making of tiles of the me diaeval type and many modern pavements were placed in old churches as a result. Most of this tile has a simple lead glaze and is made not by casting damp, plastic clay, as in the mediaeval ex amples, but by compressing powdered clay in steel dies so that shapes are more perfect and the rapidity of manufacture is vastly increased. This type of tile, usually known as "encaustic," is es pecially associated with the English ceramic works at Stoke-upon Trent, particularly those of Minturn. Recently, however, the manufacture of such tiles has become wide-spread in the United States and in Germany.

Meanwhile the Moorish skill in tile making had gradually come to be applied to floors. This type of maiolica tile was adopted in

early Renaissance churches, both in Italy and Spain, although not many examples remain, as the glaze was too soft. The decoration of the Italian maiolica pavements consists of the same type of free and graceful classic arabesque trophies, acanthus ornament and coats of arms that is found on contemporary maiolica.

In France not only were Italian tiles imported and used, but there soon grew up a local manufacture of similar painted floor tiles, especially at Rouen (established by Masseot Abaquesne, 1542-57), Nevers and Marseilles. With the increasing use of oak parquetry flooring for houses and marble for churches, toward the end of the 17th century, the use of tile diminished. There was similar importation of Italian and Spanish tiles into England during the early Renaissance and possible spasmodic attempts toward the making of certain types of this tile in England itself.

In the i8th century the use of plain, undecorated, square, red tiles, now commonly known as quarry tiles, became common all over ,northern and western Europe, and to a less extent in the American Colonies.

Although modern potteries all over the Western world are pro ducing at the present time (1929) many varieties of elaborate, decorative floor tile, ranging from those in varied and brilliant colours with all sorts of blending glazes to the most complicated so-called Spanish tiles in relief, the greatest advances in modern floor tiles have been made in simple, vitrified, mosaic tiles for use in bath rooms, kitchens, swimming pools, etc. These are always machine pressed and are made of fine clays, thoroughly vitrified, and very hard. These are made in small squares, rectangles, hexa ions and circles, in a few simple colours and are usually pasted, f ace down, on paper, in order to increase the speed of their applica tion. (See MOSAIC.) Some, by the addition of gritty substances, such as alundum or carborundum, are given a surface which pre vents slipping, even when the tile is wet.

Wall Tiles.

Earthenware was used spasmodically for wall decoration by the Egyptians, as in the doorway of the Abusir pyramid of Neterkhet (3rd Dynasty). More usually, however, they were in the form of mosaic (q.v.). Perhaps based upon earlier Egyptian examples, the people of Crete developed to an even higher degree the use of faience for walls. Thus our knowledge of early Cretan houses is largely furnished by many fragments of small faience plaques from the i8th century, B.C., which formed portions of a large, mosaic, faience, wall decoration. Moreover, there are in existence many modelled reliefs of faience from the middle and late Minoan period which were apparently inserted in the plaster of walls.