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"Caldas da Rainha - city of arts"
This motto has been used in past years by the municipal administration to promote the city.
The fact is this city has got an important museologic concentration (on the city exist 7 museums) plus galleries and workshops.
More recently the opening of an Arts and Design College brought even more significance to this motto and every year artists receive their academic formation here.
Yearly in July and August the city receives an internation symposium of sculpture in rock (SIMPPETRA).
Gifted ceramistics like Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, Manuel Mafra, Francisco Elias, Maria dos Cacos, important names in sculpture like José Fragoso and António Duarte (both have a museum with their names and work in the city) or Painters Like José Malhoa (also exists a museum here with his works) have made the city worthy of this motto, the city of arts.
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Săo Jorge (Saint George) Pottery and Ceramics
The city is well known for its special and unique ceramics!!
Caldas da Rainha is famous for its popular and often humorous ceramics: you can find from cabbage and other vegetable and fruit-like ware to colourful dinner sets and small or big ceramic figures which are supposed to be both erotic and funny (you will soon find out how...).
Many of these are due to the religious and humorous work of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, who portrayed the feelings of the average portuguese labourer in criating a long-suffering and cross-looking figure in 1875, known as "Zé Povinho" (which still represents, in a certain way, the attitude of the common portuguese worker, just as John Bull portrays the common Englishman).
Zé Povinho |
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