CHAPTER XXIX

MOORISH ART IN SOUTHERN EUROPE

786–1476

Absolute Ignorance of Art among the Original Arabs--Their Debt

to Antiquity--Their Early Architecture--Materials--Massive

Character of the First Edifices of the Moslems--The

Horseshoe Arch--Its Phallic Derivation--Progress of

Artistic Embellishment--Its Wonderful Diversity--Byzantine

Influence--Employment of Encaustic Tiles--Mosaics of the Mosque

of Cordova--Stuccoes--Their Composition and Infinite Variety

of Form--Stalactitic Pendentives--Woodwork--Its Beautiful

and Intricate Designs--Disappearance of Arabic Architectural

Monuments in Sicily--Military Structures of Mohammedan

Spain--Typical Form of the Mosque--Its Hebrew Origin--Manifold

Derivation of Hispano-Arab Architecture--Development of

Art in Moorish Spain--Its Three Epochs--The Alhambra its

Culmination--Representation of Animal Forms--Painting and

Sculpture--Mural Decoration--The Industrial Arts--Working

of Metals--Arms--Engraved Gems--Ceramics--The Leathern

Tapestry of Cordova--Textile Fabrics--Calligraphy and

Illumination--Destruction of the Artistic Remains of the Moors.

The origin, development, and decadence of the arts among the Arabs

present one of the most remarkable aspects of mediæval history. As in

the architectural monuments of every people can be read the chronicle

of its religion, its government, and its manners, so the scanty

memorials of the Spanish and Sicilian Moslems, which the destructive

accidents of foreign and domestic violence and the intemperate zeal

of superstition have permitted to descend to posterity, constitute an

invaluable record of the canons of their faith, the customs of their

social and intellectual life, the growth and consolidation of their

wonderful empire. From the remotest antiquity to the advent of Mohammed

in the seventh century nothing worthy of the name of architecture

existed in the Arabian Peninsula. The very name of that art, which

implies a settled and permanent habitation, was antagonistic to the

habits and the traditions of a nomadic existence. As a rule, the nature

of the country, the character of the soil, the scarcity of water, the

difficulties of intercommunication, were insuperable obstacles to the

foundation of cities and the promotion of mercantile and manufacturing

industry. The roving Bedouin regarded with aversion and contempt all

those whose avocations necessitated a fixed residence, and whose

security was dependent upon walls and towers. His jealousy of power,

which based the authority of his sheik upon a nominal allegiance, to be

thrown off or resumed at will, was repugnant to and wholly inconsistent

with the principles which insure the preservation of established

government or the maintenance of regular communities organized for

the common protection and benefit. It is true that in the kingdoms of

Hira and Yemen, which formed respectively the northern and southern

extremities of Arabia, towns of considerable magnitude existed. Mecca,

the revered centre of a widely diffused idolatrous system, could

boast a numerous population; and the commerce of the Red Sea and the

Persian Gulf sustained upon those waters a few insignificant and

miserable seaports; but in none of these settlements--which scarcely

deserved the name of cities--was to be found a single example of

architectural symmetry or magnificence. Everywhere else throughout the

illimitable area of the Peninsula appeared a monotonous solitude of

barren rocks and shifting sands, unrelieved by vegetation, unpeopled

by human beings, save the ferocious occupants of the Bedouin camp

or the traders who guarded the straggling caravan. Agriculture,

the substantial basis of every nation’s prosperity, was manifestly

impossible in the Desert. Mechanical ingenuity, with such a limited

field for its exercise, was necessarily reduced to the simplest

apparatus which could produce the most ordinary and primitive results.

At long and irregular intervals merchants and pilgrims brought to

Mecca and Medina uncertain and romantic accounts of the pomp and

luxury of distant empires. Compared with the edifices of the nations

which inhabited them, the dwelling of the wealthiest Arabian--of mean

appearance, suggestive of little comfort, utterly devoid of taste,

and with no attempt at ornamentation--was hardly superior to a hovel.

The famous Kaaba was itself an insignificant structure, deriving

its importance solely from its sacred traditions, a mere barbarian

depository of idols.

As was natural, and, indeed, inevitable, the Arab, in his career of

victory, absorbed and insensibly appropriated the ideas and knowledge

of the subjugated races who were his superiors in the arts of

civilization. This process was greatly facilitated by the wholesale

proselytism which was one of the principal incidents of Moslem

conquest, and which led not infrequently to the practical apostasy of

entire nations and their enlistment under the banners of Islam. In

Egypt, Syria, Persia, the architectural memorials of the Arabs partook

of the characteristics of the race whose influence predominated in the

regions subjected to their authority, just as had been the case with

all the victorious nations that had preceded them. In Spain, however,

and also in Sicily, so far as we are able to conjecture, a greater

originality distinguished the works of the conquerors than is to be

observed in other countries. No well-defined connection with Oriental

architecture can be detected in the splendid vestiges of taste and

elegance which have survived their dominion nearly five hundred years.

In the land illuminated by his genius and enriched by his industry,

the Spanish Moslem is forgotten or absolutely unknown to the majority

of the people; his memory is execrated as that of an infidel; his

works are denounced as barbaric; the effects and the influence of

his civilization are disputed or depreciated; his temples have been

mutilated or entirely destroyed; his palaces transformed into the

squalid haunts of mendicity and vice; while the leather-clad shepherd

watches his flock on the once famous site of gardens adorned with

magnificent villas and beautiful with all the luxuriant and fanciful

horticulture of the East.

The Hispano-Arab age of architecture embraces a period of six

hundred and ninety years from the foundation of the Mosque of

Cordova in the eighth century to the completion of the Alhambra in

the fifteenth. In that time it passed through many phases, whose

peculiarities are clearly indicated by its surviving monuments,

but whose order of progression is imperfect and whose limits are

not accurately defined. Although the great temple of Islam, raised

by Abd-al-Rahman, was largely composed of materials taken from the

remains of classic antiquity, Arabic architecture borrowed nothing in

design from the stupendous Roman ruins of the Peninsula. Admiration

of their proportions and beauty had awakened a desire, not so much to

imitate them, as to create something with which they might worthily

be compared; edifices which would correspond with the tastes and

necessities of an impetuous, highly organized, and passionate race,

immoderately fond of variety and adornment, easily intoxicated with

religious enthusiasm, devoted to the arts and whims of riotous

sensuality. The gigantic mass of the pyramid, the elaborately

sculptured façade of the Persian palace, the elegant forms of the

Grecian temple and the Roman triumphal arch, might excite the awe of

the Arab; but they appealed but slightly to his ardent sensibilities,

and to his enthusiastic nature which wantoned in the creation of

a thousand extravagant and fantastic visions. Ideas evoked by the

masterpieces of antiquity, however, opened a new and alluring prospect

to his talents and his ambition, and he soon became as proficient in

the most durable of the arts of peace as he had been in the prosecution

of conquest and the extension of dominion.

No people ever utilized to such an extent as the Arabs the materials

perfected by the skill and the labor of their predecessors; and, it may

be added, none in ancient or in modern times enjoyed such opportunities

for, and reaped such benefits from, the ignoble work of spoliation.

From the Bay of Biscay to the Himalayas, sumptuous palaces and temples

were constructed by the Moslem conqueror from the splendid relics of

Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Sassanian, and Indian civilization. Great

capitals rose near the sites of cities whose origin was lost in

antiquity, whose history went back to the beginning of the world. These

works, while they displayed rather the consciousness of power than the

evidences of taste, were eminently useful in laying the foundation of

new forms of architecture, whose decorations were to exhibit forms of

unparalleled magnificence and beauty. The plans of these structures

were at first of the simplest character, their ornamentation coarse and

barbaric. It was only when the supply of materials, great as it was,

became exhausted, and the Arab architect was restricted to the efforts

of his own unaided genius, that was developed that peculiar style,

which, differing in its arrangement in every country, yet preserved a

general resemblance in all, a type suggestive of the poetic rhapsodies

of the Koran and the exigencies of a system of domestic seclusion and

mystery; whose luxury recalled, by contrast, the heat and privations of

the Desert; whose legends breathed a spirit of pious resignation and

gratitude; whose adornments bewildered the eye with their complexity of

form and variety of color; whose apartments were admirably contrived

for the gratification of all the caprices of unbridled indulgence.

The intimate connections and common belief of the different portions

of the great Moslem empire disseminated far and wide the various

stores of learning and experience acquired by each; the principles

of every branch of art became more thoroughly understood, and their

application facilitated and promoted through the encouragement afforded

by increasing wealth and royal liberality. The early predilection

displayed by the Arab student for the exact sciences contributed

largely to the development and perfection of architectural excellence.

At first, the art of building had been merely constructive, without

embellishment, merit, or originality; the materials, the plunder of

antiquity; the style, a feeble and debased imitation of the simplest

parts of those noble piles which had been the admiration and the glory

of the ancient world. Familiarity with these models, acquaintance

with the principles of mathematical science, a spirit of emulation

excited by the hope of substantial reward, erelong produced a race

of builders whose creations denote a new and splendid epoch in the

history of architecture. As in the beginning, no conditions could have

been more unfavorable to the development of this art; in the end, on

the contrary, no people ever attained to greater distinction in the

graceful outlines, the exquisite beauty, the elaborate decoration of

their edifices. The importance of these results is manifest from the

circumstance that they were ordinarily achieved by the use of the

most homely materials and by the application of the simplest rules of

geometry.

The Arabs of Africa and Spain usually employed in their more massive

constructions a conglomerate material composed of lime, clay, and

pebbles, called “tabbi” or “tapia,” which was well known to the Romans

and is mentioned by Pliny. This mixture, which formed the body of the

edifice and in time acquired an extraordinary solidity and hardness,

was often faced with dressed stone or a coating of cement, which

united compactly with the central mass, and whose excellent quality is

attested by specimens of masonry that have existed, practically intact,

for the long period of eleven centuries. In some instances, large

bricks, often deeply grooved to admit the mortar, were used instead

of tapia; in others, the entire wall was composed of hewn stone; the

Mosque of Cordova presents examples of all three of these methods of

construction. Where the clay of the material contained oxide of iron,

which was sometimes the case, it imparted to the building a delicate

tint, like that of the petals of a rose, as in the Alhambra, which

derived its name from the color of its walls.

The excellent preservation which characterizes the Moorish monuments

of the Peninsula after centuries of spoliation and neglect attests the

substantial nature of their foundations, and the care and skill which

must have been employed in their erection. Many of these structures,

from their massive proportions, their projecting buttresses, their

elevated towers and bristling ramparts, suggested rather a defensive

fortress than the abode of princely luxury or a temple dedicated to

the God of mercy and of peace. While no creed was so much abhorred by

the Arab as that of the Magi, still he did not disdain to crown the

summits of his mosques and minarets with the flame-shaped battlements

of Persia, emblematic of the adoration of Fire. The Mosque of Cordova,

the Giralda of Seville, and many of the edifices of Northern Africa

display this striking and favorite ornament, which was preserved

throughout the entire Moslem domination in the Peninsula, and glitters

alike in the mosaics of the Alhambra, in the golden embroidery of

textile fabrics, and among the rich and splendid illuminations of the

Koran.

In both the strengthening and the embellishment of his work, no artist

ever made use of the arch with greater effect than did the Moslem.

The variations of its curve indicate successively the different

phases assumed by Hispano-Arab architecture from the eighth to the

fifteenth century. Some of its adaptations, for instance, that of the

_ajimez_, or double window divided by slender columns, probably

originated in Moorish Spain, whose buildings offer exquisite examples

of its employment for the combined purposes of utility and decoration.

The earliest arch, and the one most frequently adopted during the

Ommeyade Khalifate, was the horseshoe form, whose symbolic derivation

ascends to the primitive ages of phallicism and recalls the homage

once paid to the vivifying principles of Nature. The emblems of that

worship, a worship whose impressions Christianity could modify but was

unable to extirpate, were, from the earliest times, regarded as potent

talismans against every species of malign or demoniac influence. In the

Middle Ages, European Christians wore these emblems as amulets; they

carved them upon the altars of their shrines; they perpetuated them in

their spires and the pinnacles of their cathedrals; they revered them

in the sacred forms of the cross and the crucifix. It has been from

time immemorial a custom in Northern Africa to place by the entrances

of houses, as a security against the evil-eye, the symbol familiar to

Hindu superstition as the Yoni. From this ancient practice was derived

the sweeping curve of the ultra-semicircular arch, which occupies such

an important place in Arab architecture, and whose appearance was

considered an augury of good fortune to all who passed the portals

of Moslem palace, mosque, or private residence. The facility of

modification which this object affords has caused it to be represented

under a great variety of forms; and the persistence of a custom whose

origin is popularly unknown and whose peculiar significance has long

been forgotten is demonstrated by the practice of fixing a horseshoe

above the doors of dwellings, as a sign of auspicious greeting, still

prevalent in many parts of the world.

The other Indian symbol, the Lingam, sculptured upon the eternal

rock-temples of Hindustan, carried by the Egyptian priests in solemn

procession during the festivals of Osiris, carved upon the Roman

Termini, and fashioned into the crest of the cap peculiar to the

Doges of Venice, it may be added, appears, to-day, delineated with

startling fidelity to nature upon the coinage of the most practical and

progressive of modern nations,--the United States of America.

The survival of the emblems and ceremonies of phallicism in both

the Christian and Mohammedan systems demonstrates the ineradicable

influence that worship has always maintained over the superstitious

of every class, a class whose members are generally the most zealous

for those observances which they do not comprehend; and presents one

of the most curious and entertaining episodes in the annals of human

inconsistency and unquestioning devotion.

The employment of the arch, at first solely utilitarian, with the

progressive development of artistic conceptions, became in the end

merely a means of architectural adornment. The effect of the delicate

filigree arcades of the Alhambra, whose fragile materials seem

inadequate to support the cornices and entablatures apparently resting

upon them, is illusory; they are mere structural fictions of the

Moorish designer. A regular series of progressions is traceable from

the bold horseshoe sweep of the early khalifate, through the engrailed,

the slightly pointed, the polyfoil, the ogival arches, to the highly

ornate and graceful curves of the palace of the Alhamares. Throughout

all its modifications, however, certain characteristics survived; among

them the spring of one or several arches from a bracket formed by the

moulding of the capital, an arrangement peculiar to Arab architecture,

and preserved long after the arch had ceased to be an essential element

of its construction. Every variation of the segment of a circle which

human ingenuity could devise furnished new resources to the Arab.

The horseshoe form was more or less pronounced; the Roman received

fresh embellishment at his hands; the ogival was plain, festooned, or

serrated. The columns were unusually slender, after their type had

been definitely established; in the edifices first erected, they were

necessarily dissimilar in dimensions, in material, in form, in color,

and in ornamentation, constituting, as they did, the spoil of a hundred

edifices, collected in many and widely separated countries. In the

Mosque of Cordova, the most striking instance of this indiscriminate

employment of the plunder of antiquity, the columns had no bases, and

were disposed at random without regard to the rules of architectural

symmetry.

The weight of evidence seems to fully justify the opinion that the

ogival or pointed arch, whose adaptation is so prominent a feature of

Gothic construction, was introduced into Europe either through Sicily

or Spain. Its invention cannot be attributed to the Arabs. It was known

in Asia long before the time of Mohammed. It appears in the ruined

palace of the Persian kings at Ctesiphon. It is by no means certain

that it was not used in Sicily before the invasion of the Arabs. The

latter were familiar with its form before the ninth century, for it was

employed extensively in the Mosque of Tulun at Cairo.

The capital offers as great a variety in form and decoration as

the arch; in some, the Corinthian, in others, the Composite order,

prevailed; many again presented the most ornate and fantastic patterns,

examples of the florid and decadent taste of Constantinople; in the

last period golden inscriptions from the Koran in the graceful Arabic

script replaced the Ionian volute and the classic acanthus.

In the art of mural decoration the Arab stands alone and unrivalled.

The exterior of his edifices, as a rule, was bare and sombre, but

within, the glowing imagination of the artist revelled in a myriad

forms of exquisite taste and beauty. A religious system, whose simple

doctrines appealed rather to the heart than to the senses; social

customs, whose jealous observance forbade even the appearance of

publicity, screened from the eyes of the curious the celebration

of religious ceremonies and the instructive exhibition of domestic

life and manners. For these reasons, few openings appeared in Moslem

dwellings; windows were discouraged by the traditions of the harem;

a single door was generally considered sufficient; and even the

approaches to the mosques, whose crowds of worshippers necessitated

many entrances, were so contrived that the interiors were not visible

from the street.

In some cases where the peculiar sacredness of the structure appeared

to justify a prodigality of adornment, the Spanish Arab departed

from the rule which he ordinarily observed. The twenty-one portals

of the great temple of Cordova were surmounted by ornamental panels,

composed of bricks and stucco disposed in arabesque designs, one of

the earliest forms of this charming method of mural decoration. Here

also are exhibited the first examples of the marble lattice, whose

interstices admit the air but exclude the light; and of the ajimez,

or niche-shaped window, with its sweeping border and diminutive

columns of verde-antique and alabaster. Carved in the lattices and

mingled with the Persian ornaments of the doorways is to be seen the

ancient suastika, or Sanskrit cross, symbolic of happiness and moral

regeneration, and revered by the Aryan race as a precious talisman

more than a thousand years before the Christian era. The recurrence

of this emblem upon the walls of a Semitic temple--now dedicated to a

worship to which the tenets of both Mohammedan and Hindu are equally

abhorrent--is ironically suggestive of the instability of religious

institutions. Another singular circumstance is the appearance of the

Latin cross upon some of the capitals, unquestionably sculptured

there before the erection of the building. When the antipathy of

Moslems to the Christian emblem of salvation is remembered, this fact

becomes not only extraordinary, but inexplicable. The Giralda of

Seville, now believed to have been raised as a memorial of conquest,

and to have served the double purpose of minaret and observatory, in

the eyes of the Andalusian Moslems only inferior in sanctity to the

Djalma of Cordova, displays, to a remarkable degree, the talent of

the Moorish artist in the work of mural embellishment. Its majestic

proportions, the unique and lavish character of its ornamentation,

extended its renown to the uttermost regions of the East and made it

the architectural pride and glory of Mohammedan Spain. Both it and the

Mosque of Cordova are known to have been painted; the interstices of

the elegant tracery of brick arabesques which covers its sides are said

to have presented the brilliant hues of scarlet and azure, while the

projecting designs were gilded, the whole forming a blazing mass of

color whose combinations must have produced an inconceivably gorgeous

effect.

The Byzantine derivation of many of the characteristics of early

Hispano-Arab architecture is emphasized in the Giralda, whose

construction, aside from its decorations, is almost the counterpart

of that of the Campanile of Venice, with which it was practically

contemporaneous. Inclined planes, or ramps, instead of stairways,

afford, in both, access to the summit; and, while the Giralda is by far

the more beautiful, their general similarity in plan, dimensions, and

appearance cannot fail to impress the most heedless observer.

On the two principal structures of Moorish Spain devoted to the service

of religion, the use of enamelled tiles as an element of external

decoration, an art whose latest adaptations were also peculiar to the

Arab and which was subsequently carried to such a degree of perfection,

is first to be remarked. The Mosque affords but a few coarse and

ill-arranged specimens; those of the Giralda are of far superior

material and finish, and from the comparatively small number remaining

we can form some idea of the appearance of this magnificent tower when,

intact, its summit was girdled with these brilliant ornaments, whose

polished surfaces flashed like jewels in the Andalusian sunlight.

The improvement in the manufacture and disposition of encaustic tiles

is an index of the progress of the Spanish Moslems in the mechanical

arts, as well as in the application of the principles of architectural

ornamentation. During the final period of their dominion in the

Peninsula, the use of tilework was practically confined to interiors,

and it was in the Alhambra that it attained its highest development.

In the bewildering complexity of patterns, in the accuracy with which

their minute pieces are united, in the variety of colors, and in the

exquisite taste with which they are combined, the mosaics of that

palace are absolutely unapproachable by any similar work which has ever

been produced by human skill. Their surfaces have all the brilliancy

and polish of the finest porcelain. The edges of fragments which have

been detached show marks of the file, evidence of the painstaking

and conscientious labors of the Moorish artisan. These enamels are

remarkable not only for their elegance, but for the radical difference

which they present to the mosaics employed during the existence of the

Khalifate of Cordova. The latter were not ceramic, but were prepared

by laying the colors upon the wall, and then covering them with minute

cubes of glass embedded in a transparent cement.

The Mihrab of the Great Mosque shows what results can be accomplished

by this simple process. In its rich panels, arches, and cupolas, in

the belts of inscriptions glowing with a score of brilliant hues,

in the graceful interlacing arabesques, the crystal mosaics, in

themselves imperishable, shine with undiminished lustre after a lapse

of more than nine hundred years. The most celebrated productions of

this description extant in the churches and mosques of Constantinople

and in the cathedrals of Venice and Ravenna bear no comparison,

save in the character of the materials employed, to those which

adorn the sanctuary of the famous Moslem temple. The designs were

undoubtedly traced by Arab artists, whose versatility is disclosed by

their extraordinary proficiency in an art with which they must have

been hitherto unfamiliar, and in whose successful manipulation they

surpassed the masterpieces of Byzantine genius. No explanation has been

given to account for the sudden disuse of a method of architectural

embellishment at its culmination, in an example which has called forth

the praise of thirty generations; but it is a well-established fact

that, after the destruction of the khalifate in the tenth century,

the employment of Byzantine mosaics, the most exquisite of the

ornamental processes known to the Spanish Arabs, disappeared forever

from the Peninsula. It may have been that its exotic derivation was to

some extent responsible for its sudden and absolute extinction. The

soseifesa, from the Greek ψήφοσις, “made of little stones,” as this

mosaic was known to the Moors, was a distinctive product of Byzantine

ingenuity. The material destined for the Mosque, as well as the workmen

skilled in its use, were sent to the Khalif Al-Hakem II. by the Greek

Emperor of Constantinople; and it was from these foreigners that the

Moors learned the leading principles of an art which, long practised

on the shores of the Bosphorus, had now become familiar to many cities

of the Mediterranean coast. The jealous pride of the Arab--who was not

averse to borrowing architectural ideas from different nations that

were his masters in the science of construction, and many of which

bowed under his yoke as tributaries--revolted perhaps at the open

appropriation of an entire system from an enemy of his religion, and

especially at the confession of intellectual inferiority that such an

act might imply.

In the perfection of enamelled mosaics, however, his originality was

undisputed; his artistic conceptions were untrammelled; and the proofs

of his creative genius are written upon walls and columns which have

excited the admiring wonder of architectural critics from countries

unknown to both Europe and Asia at the date of their completion. The

dadoes of the Alhambra, its pavement and its roofs, before systematic

neglect and vandalism had accomplished their destructive work,

undoubtedly presented a spectacle of unique and dazzling splendor.

The total disappearance of at least one-third of the palace, and the

shameless mutilation of the rest, have unfortunately deprived the

architect of standards of comparison at different epochs, by which the

various steps in the progressive development of the application of

encaustic tiles might be definitely traced.

The most distinguishing characteristic of Arabic mural ornamentation,

however, is the stucco work, which seems to have been of

contemporaneous origin with the earliest monuments of the khalifate.

Such was its prodigious improvement that specimens of the rude tracery

executed in the eighth century on the walls of the Djalma of Cordova,

and the delicate, lace-like effects produced in the fourteenth by the

builders of the Alhambra, bear to each other scarcely a single point

of resemblance. The secret of the composition of this material, which

in time became as hard and durable as stone, is lost. It is supposed

to have been made of pulverized marble, lime, and gypsum, mixed in

certain proportions with the whites of eggs, and then, while in an

almost fluid condition, run into moulds. It contained some substance

noxious to all insects, for neither flies nor spiders are ever noticed

on the walls of the Moorish palace. This singular property, which has

contributed as much as any other cause to the preservation of this

precious monument of Arab art, has been attributed by popular tradition

to the presence of garlic in the mortar; but the odor of that plant,

however pungent, must certainly have been dissipated in the course of

years; and no substance known to modern chemistry will, if exposed to

atmospheric influences, retain for centuries its qualities unimpaired.

The moulding of the stucco ornaments facilitated their reproduction,

and the multiplication of an infinite variety of designs. Of the

latter, Contreras counted one hundred and fifty-two, all different, in

a single apartment, the Hall of Comares in the Alhambra. Their effect

was that of the richest embroidered tapestry, an illusion heightened by

the hangings of embossed and painted leather often suspended beneath

them. The peculiar textile resemblance of Arab mural decoration owed

its origin to the drapery of the tent, and is a reminiscence of the

nomadic life of the Desert.

In the presence of this gorgeous embroidery in stone, now resembling

tissues of silken and gold brocade, and again assuming the delicate

texture of lace, whose filmy and transparent meshes almost seem to

move with every passing breeze, all appearance of solidity is lost.

This pleasing artistic deception extends even to the construction of

the arches, which appear to sustain the weights resting upon their

curves by the influence of some mysterious principle unknown to the

laws of mechanics. The explanation of the apparent phenomenon, however,

disclosed a method as simple as it is ingenious. Upon the capitals were

placed light but strong wooden beams, which, covered with plaster,

were lost in the maze of ornament, while they formed the real support

of the arcades whose substantial character is demonstrated by their

successful resistance to the violence of the elements and the vandalism

of man through many centuries. The interiors of the apartments of

public institutions and royal habitations were covered with this kind

of ornament disposed in high relief, and in which the stalactitic or

pendentive vault--original with the Moorish architect--constituted a

most attractive and prominent feature.

It would be impossible to enumerate the wonderful variety of forms

which this plastic material was made to assume under the skilful

manipulation of the artist. Diminutive colonnades, surmounted by

delicate engrailed arches, medallions, festoons and wreaths, the

armorial bearings and mottoes of the Alhamares, Arabic texts and

legends which can be read from right or left with equal facility, and

geometrical designs, whose elements are susceptible of an infinite

number of changes and combinations, are the salient points which strike

the eye and appeal to the imagination in those palatial halls which

in their original condition must have exhibited a magnificence which

baffled all description.

The stalactitic patterns, in whose elegant arrangement and marvellous

diversity the constructive genius of the Moor especially delighted,

were applied, not only to the cupolas, but in the angles along the

frieze and upon the plane surface of the walls. The domes of the

principal chambers of the Alhambra are entirely composed of these

pendentives, whose pieces, in the most elaborate of their examples of

artistic taste, number many thousand. The tenacity and strength of the

material was vastly increased by the use of twigs and rushes buried in

the fresh and yielding mortar, which was fastened to a wooden framework

by nails plated with tin, which even now, when exposed to the air, show

no evidence of corrosion.

With the exception of the columns, so conspicuous a peculiarity of

Arabic construction, marble was sparingly used, although the quarries

of Spain had been renowned from the highest antiquity for the quantity

and excellence of their products. While a difference of opinion

prevails among antiquaries upon this point, it is reasonably certain

that the columns supporting the arcades of the Alhambra were originally

gilded. In the Hall of Justice some of them are encased in mosaic,

which produces an unique, if not a pleasing, effect.

Of equal originality and magnificence were the ceilings and the doors

of the grand Moorish edifices. The art of marquetry offered to the

Arab workman a field in which his characteristic love of detail and

intricate combinations, aided by his unflagging industry, found full

expression. In the buildings of the khalifate, the ceilings, instead

of being either flat or vaulted, usually conformed in number and

inclination to the roofs, which in the Mosque were nineteen, one for

every nave. The rafters, carved upon three sides, enclosed spaces

forming a regular series of panels painted with brilliant colors, and

whose mouldings and other elevated portions were covered with gold. The

woodwork was not infrequently inlaid with rare and precious substances,

such as ebony and ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, lazulite,

and various gems. In the later periods of the Moslem domination, the

same materials were used, but more correct ideas of architectural

construction governed their disposition. The primitive angular ceilings

were supplanted by the hemispherical dome, whose surface, covered with

superb geometrical tracery, blazing with vermilion, blue, and gold,

displayed, in all its perfection, the utmost skill of the Moorish

artisan. The doors and the lattices of the harem corresponded in style

and workmanship with the ornamented interiors of the buildings, and

it was not unusual for a single lattice which screened an opening but

a few feet square to contain fifteen hundred pieces, combined in many

complex and graceful geometrical patterns. The mimbar and the lectern

of the Mosque of Cordova, already described in these pages, whose

odoriferous and precious woodwork was fastened together with golden

nails and enriched with jewels,--long the pride of the faithful and

now the subject of the fruitless speculations of the historian,--were

also examples of Arab marquetry produced in the very infancy of that

art. The perfection subsequently attained in the carving of hard woods,

which were often inlaid with arabesques in gold, silver, and copper,

has never been surpassed.

In Sicily, less fortunate in this respect than Spain, not a single

well-authenticated edifice of the Mohammedan domination is known to

exist. The two great structures--the Ziza and the Cuba--in the vicinity

of Palermo, assigned by doubtful authority to the tenth century, and

certainly remodelled, if not entirely reconstructed, by the Normans,

are the only examples by which we can form any conception of the

architecture of a kingdom not inferior to the Cordovan khalifate in

everything that implies an advanced state of intellectual culture

and civilization. Their proportions are bold and massive; their

exteriors, while by no means ornate, are decorated with a series of

lofty recessed arches extending from the foundation to the frieze, the

latter being formed by an Arabic inscription of gigantic dimensions

which cannot now be deciphered. These buildings, with the exception

of a few mosaics and some stalactitic ornamentation evidently of the

time of the Normans, possess none of the distinguishing features

of contemporaneous Saracenic architecture, a fact which has cast a

well-founded suspicion upon their imputed Arab origin. The unprotected

situation of Sicily, which exposed it to the incursions of every

marauder, its succession of semi-barbarous rulers, its long and bloody

civil wars, the unrelenting hostility of the See of Rome to everything

connected with Mohammedanism, may account for the total disappearance

of the superb architectural monuments which history informs us abounded

during the Moslem rule. The same fate has befallen the productions of

the mechanical and industrial arts, none of which, of any importance,

or, indeed, of established authenticity, are preserved in either

national museums or private collections. The memorials of Moslem

civilization in Sicily, of which such copious and interesting details

survive in the works of contemporaneous native authors, have therefore

been practically annihilated. The absolute dearth of these objects of

architectural and artistic ingenuity is the more extraordinary when the

magnitude of the manufacturing and commercial interests of mediæval

Sicily, the protection and encouragement afforded the Moslems by their

conquerors, and the close relations they sustained with neighboring

countries are considered.

The military structures of Mohammedan Spain exhibit the same general

characteristics as do the other surviving examples of defensive

architecture during the Middle Ages. As might be supposed from the

purposes for which they were destined, and from their exposure to the

uninterrupted warfare of many centuries, they have undergone radical

changes, and at this distance of time it is usually impossible to

determine which portions are of Arabic and which of Castilian origin.

The only perfect surviving exemplar of Moorish fortification in the

Peninsula is the Gate of the Sun at Toledo. The defensive works of the

Spanish Arab were generally on an immense scale, and their construction

was in strict conformity with the best known principles of military

engineering. The walls were of great thickness and solidity, the

towers square and disposed at frequent intervals, as, for instance,

those of Granada, whose lines of circumvallation, while not of

extraordinary extent, contained more than thirteen hundred. Covered

ways and barbicans provided with battlements defended the approaches

and protected the fortress itself from sudden and unexpected assault.

The citadel, which frequently enclosed a considerable area, and whose

precincts presented the appearance of a diminutive city, was at once

the seat of the court with its numerous retinue, the head-quarters

of the army, and the depository of the products of the mint and the

arsenal. It communicated by means of subterranean passages, known only

to certain officials of the government, with the other defences, and

always with the outer wall of the city, thus affording a speedy and

unsuspected means of escape in time of conspiracy or insurrection.

With the exception of the Gate of the Sun at Toledo, Moorish citadels

exhibit little attempt at ornamentation; the serious and important

destination of these gigantic works is realized in their frowning

aspect and their massive walls, which offered neither temptation nor

opportunity for the exercise of decorative skill. Water was provided

for the garrison not only by immense cisterns, but by galleries cut

for long distances through the solid rock, below the bed of the stream

which usually encircled the eminences upon which these strongholds were

erected. Occasionally, when the situation of a tower afforded unusual

security, its interior was finished with all the pomp and beauty of a

royal residence.

The mosque, one of the most characteristic types of Arab architecture,

preserved to the last in its plan and principles of construction the

striking peculiarities of its origin. Although its design has been

supposed to have been derived from the basilica, there can be little

doubt that it was modelled after the Hebrew temple. Its rectangular

form, its rows of colonnades, its mihrab, corresponding to the holy of

holies, the fountains for ceremonial lustration, are all suggestive

of the numerous points of resemblance existing between the Moslem and

the Jewish faith. In spite of inherited prejudice, but a vague and

ill-defined boundary has always separated these two great divisions

of the Semitic race, which trace their common origin to Abraham.

The simple luxuries of the Desert were commemorated, not only by

the grateful sound of rippling waters, but by the perfume and the

shade of the orange-trees of the court, which refreshed the senses

of the worshipper and suggested to his vivid imagination dreams of a

material and voluptuous paradise. The moderate height of the building

exaggerated its already vast dimensions; the eye, bewildered by the

forest of columns, vainly attempted to penetrate its interminable

depths; and the impression of the infinite was heightened by

superimposed tiers of interlacing arches, whose combinations recalled

the graceful foliage of their prototype, the palm grove of Arabia.

The Moorish architecture of the Peninsula, as the reader has no doubt

already observed, is remarkable rather for elegance than for grandeur.

It was not like that of Egypt, dependent for its effect upon the lofty,

the imposing, the colossal. The spirit of Grecian art, which found

expression in structures whose perfect symmetry of form and correctness

of detail have never been equalled, furnished to the Arab architect

none of those artistic conceptions which were the inspiration of

painters, sculptors, and builders in subsequent ages. The genius of the

Arab was in general rather adaptive than creative, rather imitative

than original. But while many of its ideas can be traced to the

examples of former civilizations, a people who profited by and improved

upon the suggestions of a score of races can hardly be said to have

borrowed from any. While art, especially as applied to architecture, is

an infallible index of the sentiments and mental peculiarities of the

people by whom it is developed, none can claim absolute originality for

its productions; all are necessarily dependent upon their predecessors

for much of the creative influence by which they are actuated. This

is particularly true of the Arabs of the Occident. Every nation of

antiquity as well as of the contemporaneous world paid intellectual

tribute to the great Moslem Empire of the West. Its mosques were

Jewish, its fortifications Roman, its minarets Byzantine. The finest

ornamentation of the exterior of its magnificent temple was derived

from Ctesiphon, that of the interior from Constantinople. Its stuccoes

came from Syria, its enamels from ancient Nineveh. The infinite

combinations of its geometrical designs and its method of hanging

doors had been familiar to the Egyptians three thousand years before

they were employed in Spain. The capitals of the earliest columns are

clumsy imitations of Grecian models. The researches of antiquaries

have disclosed the germ of the pendentive vault in Persia, and the

carved and painted ceiling of wood was used in the Orient long before

the appearance of Mohammed. Even rubble-work, the basis of every kind

of Arabic architecture, was a process which had been adopted in the

construction of edifices from a remote antiquity.

Hispano-Arab architecture is ordinarily divided for convenience into

three arbitrary and ill-defined periods,--the age of its origin,

embracing the works attributable to the Ommeyade Khalifate; the age

of its transition, which includes all constructions erected by the

principalities which arose after the dismemberment of the Moslem

empire; and the age of its culmination, which began with the rise of

the independent kingdom of Granada in the thirteenth century and closed

with the unrivalled excellence of the Alhambra. The monuments of the

first period, of which the Mosque of Cordova is the most striking, and,

indeed, practically the sole perfect exemplar, are widely scattered and

incomplete.

The sumptuous edifices which abounded in every city have disappeared

or have been mutilated almost beyond recognition. Barbaric violence

has annihilated the palaces which lined the Guadalquivir, and whose

richness and beauty were the admiration of the world. Ecclesiastical

malignity has demolished to their very foundations or sedulously

effaced the characteristics of the innumerable temples raised for the

propagation of a hostile religion, and the extent of this systematic

enmity may be inferred from the suggestive fact that of the seven

hundred mosques required for the worship of the Moslem capital, but one

has survived. Diligent antiquarian research has failed to establish

even the sites of all but three or four of the remainder, of whose

existence and splendor both history and tradition afford abundant

and indisputable evidence. The ignorance and prejudice of successive

generations have, in addition to the above-named destructive agencies,

contributed their share, and no unimportant one, to the obliteration of

these memorials of Arab taste and ingenuity.

The Mosque of Cordova represents every phase of Arabian constructive

and decorative art during the period of two centuries which elapsed

between its foundation and completion. It is, therefore, to that extent

an architectural epitome of the development of Moslem civilization,

in which, in a measure, can be deciphered the history of the race

under whose auspices it was erected and adorned. While the technically

independent character of Moorish architecture in the Peninsula has

been long established, its originality is, as has already been stated,

for the most part dependent upon ingenious combinations of elements

afforded by the examples of former civilized nations. This fact becomes

evident when the various portions of the Great Mosque are examined in

detail, and is especially apparent in the magnificent decorations of

the sanctuary. Here, while the plan and the designs were clearly of

Arabic origin, the materials and the method of their application, and,

indeed, even some of the artisans, were Byzantine. But these precious

mosaics bear but little resemblance to those of contemporaneous

Christian churches, which were identical with them in composition and

in the manner of attaching them to the walls. What in the one instance

seems the perfection of artistic beauty and excellence, in the others

appears glaring, harsh, and grotesque; the sublime artistic genius,

alone capable of creating these marvels, is absent. The Mihrab of the

Mosque of Cordova had no prototype in Islam or elsewhere, and both its

plan and details have defied all imitation.

The evolution of Arabic art in Spain is one of the most curious

problems in the annals of its exotic civilization. Its origin and

the impulse that first prompted its development, as well as the

principal models from which it obtained its ideas, are buried in

obscurity. No country in Europe contains such a variety of gigantic

and well-preserved memorials of Roman imperial greatness as the

Peninsula. But with the exception of the city walls and the castles,

there is no evidence that the Arabs were ever so impressed with their

grandeur as to make even an ineffectual attempt to imitate them. The

isolation of Mohammedan Spain, whose dominant sect was discredited,

and whose dynasty was proscribed by the ruling Houses of Syria and

Persia, was long unfavorable to the maintenance of those relations

by means of which an interchange of ideas and the rapid progress of

a nation in the arts of peace is ordinarily effected. The steps by

which the architectural conceptions of many Oriental nations became

the inspiration of the builders of the Western Khalifate are therefore

undiscernible. It is possible, however, that these ideas, apparently

borrowed but developed under similar conditions along the same lines

of thought, are after all original. The great importance attached

by the Arabs to mathematics, in the study of which they attained

to such unrivalled proficiency, must, as already suggested, have

contributed more to architectural improvement than any other cause.

The application of algebra to geometry--an invention ascribed, with a

considerable degree of certainty, to the Spanish Moslems--immeasurably

facilitated the development of every art dependent upon mechanical

and mathematical conditions, and none is more indebted to it, in

this respect, than the art of construction. Long anterior to the

tenth century, the epoch of the most advanced civilization of the

khalifate, the schools of Cordova, Seville, Valencia, Malaga, and

Toledo gave instruction in geometry, drawing, and other branches of

mathematics pertaining to architecture, the lessons being supplemented

by practical demonstrations of the application of their principles

under the direction of experienced masters. Under such circumstances,

the standard of Moorish taste was formed, and its ideas of constructive

excellence definitely established in the first and most important stage

of its development. The genius which inspired its early creations, the

dreams which spurred on its youthful ambition, were never lost until

the crowning glory of its achievements fell before the conqueror, and

its artisans and their productions alike were trampled in the dust by

the ruthless chivalry of Castile.

The age of transition has left no memorials from which an intelligent

idea of its progress can be obtained. The Giralda of Seville is the

only one which exists in tolerable preservation, and it affords an

example of exterior ornamentation alone. In the Alcazar may be observed

labors which were evidently completed at different epochs; but no

information is available of the dates at which they were executed,

nor can it now be ascertained how much is of Arab origin and how much

should be attributed to Mudejar influence. The damage this palace has

suffered, and the material alterations it has undergone at the hands of

monarchs devoid of taste and of appreciation of the noble works of the

Moors, have practically destroyed its identity, and have rendered it,

on account of its absurd and incongruous additions and reparations, the

despair of both the archeologist and the architect. The characteristics

of Arabian art are better preserved and more easily traced in the

edifices of Granada erected by the dynasty of the Alhamares, and which

represent the final period of its development.

The Alhambra--a structure in whose luxurious elegance are embodied

the results of seven centuries of progress--is the type and crowning

triumph of this epoch. In its sumptuous apartments are to be found

none of the peculiar features to be observed in the buildings of the

first era of the Moslem domination; none of the severe dignity, the

sombre majesty, the fatalistic conceptions, the tendency to exclude

all but the simplest forms of ornamentation, which distinguish the

earliest portions of the Djalma of Cordova. The horseshoe arch has

disappeared or has been radically modified; its importance as a

talisman is apparently no longer recognized; and it has given place

to other symbols of less obscure origin and meaning. Here one of the

most important of Koranic precepts is violated; animal forms are

represented in paintings as well as in sculpture; and the curiosity

of the artist is gratified by a delineation of physiognomy, costume,

and manners, unique of its kind, and still abhorred as idolatrous

by the orthodox zealots of the Mohammedan world. The conditions of

domestic life, exacted by and dependent upon the traditions of the

harem, are everywhere observed,--in the frowning exterior; in the

isolated courts; in the guarded communications; in the ponderous doors;

in the mysterious lattices; in the exquisite decorations; in the

distribution of appliances for physical enjoyment which have exhausted

the resources of Oriental luxury. The Arabic love of variety and

magnificence, so characteristic of an impulsive, a versatile, a highly

romantic race, is visible on every side; in the arrangement of columns,

now single, now grouped; some smooth, others belted with rings, the

majority once covered with gilding, a few still encased in an enamel

of sparkling mosaic; in the composite curves of the arches, each

disclosing the distinctive traits of its original type,--horseshoe,

ogival, semicircular,--some engrailed, others stalactitic, all of

incomparable grace and symmetry; in the spandrels, at short distance,

apparently identical, yet upon close inspection moulded in a score of

fantastic designs, through whose lace-like interstices the rays of

sunlight diffuse a mellowed glow; in the maze of polished tilework,

whose bewildering combinations are but broken sections of the nine

polygons of geometry, arranged by the aid of algebraic science; in

the fretted walls with their gorgeous arabesques; in the intertwined

mottoes, doubly legible; in the cupolas, whose decorations of azure,

scarlet, and gold sparkle in the semi-obscurity of the interior like

a setting of precious gems. The eye of the hypercritical architect

sees in the Alhambra but a confused jumble of incongruous ideas; a

construction without recognized precedent; a monument which belongs to

no order of architecture, and which transgresses the established rules

of that science as radically as the productions of many authors, whose

genius is the delight of millions, do the unities of time and place,

once universally considered the essentials of poetic excellence. But

it is this very irregularity, this independence of the arbitrary and

inflexible principles of art, that, to the unprofessional observer,

constitutes its greatest charm. The originality of its component

parts when analyzed may be disputed, but no question can arise as

to the consummate skill that arranged and combined them in a whole,

which, although it may offend the canons of artistic criticism, if

strictly construed, is yet beautiful, harmonious, enchanting. The

famous Arabian palace is the masterpiece of the Moorish architects of

Spain; the crowning achievement of the labors of twenty generations;

the embodiment of the most elegant conceptions of the art, the

industry, and the intellectual culture of that polished age. So long

as the slightest portion of it survives, it will convey an instructive

lesson to the student and the antiquary, and call up memories of that

great empire, whose literary remains, whose scientific discoveries,

whose large tolerance, whose inquiring spirit, were at once the

harbingers and the incentives of modern civilized life. All that is

valuable in the economic institutions of society, in its multitudinous

inventions, in its facility of intercommunication, in the excellence

of its fabrics, in the perfection of its agricultural operations, has

long been recognized as dependent upon the practical and judicious

application of the principles of science. Of these considerations, the

Alhambra, which was the centre of the most accomplished and progressive

community of the Middle Ages, is particularly suggestive. It is a

monument of national genius. It is a symbol of national progress. It

looked down upon the libraries which sheltered the fragments of that

civilization whose learning had enlightened the mediæval world. In

its halls the prodigal luxury of the Moorish princes daily exhibited

exquisite specimens of the experience and dexterity of the artisans of

the kingdom,--the masterpieces of the weaver, the cutler, the armorer,

the jeweller, the enameller. Its painted battlements towered above the

lists where Moslem and Christian knights had competed for the prize

of chivalry and daring, bestowed by the emir surrounded by the pomp

of arms and the beauty of the seraglio. Thus was the Alhambra the

emblem of the greatness and splendor of Granada, the boast of its

monarchs, the wonder of strangers, the pride of the people. Its glory

has departed, its lustre is tarnished, but the mournful traditions

with which poetry and romance have invested its history can never pass

away; and its fate is emphasized by the mottoes of the sovereigns who

respectively founded and mutilated it, still emblazoned upon its walls,

the arrogant vaunt of the Spaniard, “Plus Ultra;” the pious device of

the Moor, “There is no conqueror but God.”

The injunction of Mohammed concerning the representation of animal

forms was disregarded almost from the earliest days of Moslem dominion.

Even before the tenth century, Mussulman artists who depicted living

beings seem to have abounded in the countries subject to Islam. A

biography of them is given by Makrisi, in which great talents are

ascribed to those of Egypt. Their works were displayed not only in

wood and stone, but on silk, velvet, and cloth of gold. The treasury

of the Fatimite Khalif, Mostansir, contained peacocks and gazelles of

life-size, made of the precious metals enriched with magnificent gems.

Al-Amin, the son and successor of Harun-al-Raschid, possessed a number

of magnificent barges, fashioned like birds and animals and painted

in imitation of their living models, whose oarsmen were concealed

from view. As these monsters, apparently instinct with life, moved

mysteriously over the Tigris, they excited the astonishment of the

multitude as inventions of the genii. From the statement of the great

historian, Ibn-Khaldun, who visited Granada in 1363, the representation

of well-known events, as well as of the features of distinguished

personages on the walls of houses in that city, must have been common.

He was greatly scandalized by this unorthodox custom, which, although

deriving its origin from the Castilians, was constantly practised by

those who called themselves good Mussulmans, among whom were numbered

many artists who had been instructed by the Byzantine and Persian

residents of the capital.

Nor was sculpture, an art implying an even more flagrant violation of

Koranic precept than that exhibited by the less conspicuous objects

produced by the brush and the pencil, neglected by Mohammedans. Arabic

histories are full of allusions to these productions. Khumaruyah,

Sultan of Egypt, in the ninth century had a great hall in his palace

filled with statues of the women of his harem. The knockers on the

doors of many of the mansions of Bagdad were carved in the shapes of

grotesque animals. Existing examples, few as they are, of the sculpture

of the Hispano-Arab period show to what an extent religious prejudice

was defied by the Mussulmans of Spain.

The doctors of the law disagreed as to the interpretation of the

command of the Koran which banished from the realm of art one of its

most useful and suggestive features. Some regarded it in the light of

an absolute prohibition to be construed in its broadest significance;

to others it seemed to refer only to the fabrication and worship of

idols. The Spanish Arabs, who had greater liberality and a larger

share of philosophical indifference than their Oriental brethren,

apparently adhered to the latter opinion. At all events, the admonition

generally respected as a cardinal principle of the orthodox believer

was ignored from the very foundation of the khalifate, and even the

sanctuary of Islam was defiled by the presence of sculptured forms of

animal life; in the Great Mosque of Abd-al-Rahman, the Seven Sleepers

and the raven despatched from the ark by Noah are chiselled upon the

capitals; over the portal of Medina-al-Zahrâ stood the effigy of the

beautiful favorite whose vanity had suggested the erection of that

magnificent edifice; its principal fountain was embellished with the

figures of twelve different quadrupeds of gold incrusted with precious

stones; in the designs of its rich hangings were interwoven wild beasts

and birds of brilliant plumage, whose forms, delineated with amazing

skill, appeared to move with the swaying of the silken tapestry; in

one of the squares of the capital stood a lion, cast in bronze and

plated with gold, whose eyes were rubies, and from whose mouth gushed

the refreshing waters brought from the springs of the distant sierra.

In the fairy palace of Rusafah, equal to its rival in the splendor of

its appointments and inferior only in dimensions, silver swans floated

upon the glossy surface of the lakes, and the fountains displayed the

effigies of men and animals carved in marble and jasper by a cunning

hand. The talismanic horseman of King Habus, described in history and

immortalized by fiction, is another instance of this disregard of

Koranic injunction, again confirmed by the two marble lions of the

Moorish mint and by the famous twelve of the Alhambra.

But the most curious of these examples of violated law are the

paintings upon the ceiling of the Hall of Justice in that palace, and

which are supposed to have been executed during the fourteenth century.

Two of them represent scenes of war and the chase, but no data survive

by which it can be determined whether they are historic or legendary.

The third contains portraits of ten kings of Granada, whose rank is

indicated by the royal blazons represented in the central painting. The

faces, sober, dignified, majestic, are evidently drawn from life, and

a tradition exists that the features of some of them were recognized

by old Moslems of Granada when, after the Reconquest, they were for

the first time exposed to public inspection; while the turbans, the

flowing robes of various colors, the swords with curious hilts and

scabbards of gold and silver, the yellow slippers, at once suggest the

Orient; and place before the eye the exact costumes, and perhaps the

lineaments, of those princes who long maintained in a corner of hostile

Europe the legends, the belief, and the civilization of the Mohammedan

world. These unique works are of Arabic origin, a fact established

by the monograms traced upon them, which denote unmistakably the

nationality of the artist. In numerous particulars they indicate lack

of experience and cultivation. The figures are rudely delineated, the

positions strained and awkward. None exhibit the slightest grace; some

are absolutely grotesque; the colors are not distributed harmoniously;

no attention is paid to the rules of perspective; the lines are

sharply and unpleasantly defined; there is no symmetry of proportion,

no dexterous imitation of those natural features which impart to a

painting life and energy. The mechanical arrangement is as crude as the

pictorial execution. Upon a wooden framework, pigskins were stretched

and fastened, and over these a layer of gypsum was spread, forming

the foundation for the colors. The flatness of the latter and the

golden ground of the portraits are indications of Byzantine taste and

influence.

Among the architectural decorations employed by Moorish artists,

none were more popular or more susceptible of variety of arrangement

and harmony of effect than those formed by the letters of the Arabic

alphabet. The inscriptions on the walls of Moorish edifices constitute

no inconsiderable part of their choicest ornamentation. Those of the

Peninsula are principally devoted to mottoes of a religious nature or

to legends illustrating the grandeur and munificence of the sovereign.

In some instances, a poem, evidently composed for the purpose, and

celebrating the virtues of the prince or the beauty of the building it

adorned, glittered upon the panelled walls or encircled the apartment

with characters of living fire. The square Cufic letters used in the

first buildings of the khalifate were eventually superseded by the

graceful curves of the Neshki, of African script, which is seen in

all its perfection in the Alhambra. So admirably are these characters

adapted to the purposes of decoration that Spanish and Italian workmen,

ignorant of their significance and supposing them to be arabesques,

have frequently inserted Koranic inscriptions among the carvings of

Christian churches; and it is said that they are even to be seen

upon the proud façade of St. Peter’s at Rome. What a circumstance of

exquisite irony it would be, as a French writer pertinently suggests,

if, over the portal of the grandest temple of Christendom, the fountain

of trinitarian orthodoxy, the stronghold of Catholicism, the seat

of the infallible Vicar of Christ, should be found inscribed the

Mohammedan declaration of faith proclaiming the mission of the Arabian

Prophet and the unity of God!

The colors most affected by the Spanish-Moslem in his interior

decorations were vermilion and ultramarine, both esteemed by artists

as much for durability as for brilliancy; and the permanence of those

used by the Moors of Granada, whose vivid tints have been perfectly

preserved through the lapse of ages, attest their extraordinary purity

and excellence. While these remained the basis of artistic coloring,

others--such as green, black, yellow, and purple--were sparingly

employed, excepting in the mosaics, which blaze with a mingled mass of

gorgeous hues.

No feature of Moslem civilization has lingered more persistently in

the Peninsula than its architecture. The scanty knowledge of the

Visigothic builder was swept away by the Conquest. The pride of the

Castilian, bred to arms and incompetent by education and experience,

revolted at the restraints and drudgery incident to such an occupation.

As a result, Arabic artisans constructed most of the edifices erected

for years after the fall of the Saracen power, and the predominance

of their artistic ideas gave rise to a new style called Mudejar,

whose creations are often difficult to distinguish from those of the

original Moorish order. No more flattering tribute can be paid to

their accomplishments than the circumstance that no class of buildings

profited so much by their talents as those erected under the auspices

of the Church. After the capture of Cordova by the Castilians, Moorish

masons and carpenters were compelled to work for a specified period

every year on these sacred structures, in consideration of which they

were exempted from the payment of taxes. Turbaned artificers, vassals

of the clergy, assisted in the construction of some of the noblest

piles of the Peninsula; the walls of great monasteries, the windows of

lofty spires, exhibit the engrailed and horseshoe arches of the Moor;

his skill was exercised in the chiselling of the intricate designs

which cover the fronts of magnificent cathedrals; a chapel in the

grand metropolitan church of Toledo, the seat of the Primate of Spain,

which dates from the thirteenth century, is a beautiful specimen of

Mudejar art. This influence is also apparent in many of the finest

ecclesiastical edifices of France,--in the churches of Maguelonne,

in the cathedral of Puy, and in the ancient abbeys of Provence and

Languedoc. It is said by Dulaure, in his “Histoire de Paris,” that

Moorish architects assisted in the construction of Notre Dame.

The absence of all remains of sepulchral architecture dating from

the Mohammedan period deprives posterity of one of the most reliable

standards by which the customs, the sentiments, and the characteristics

of a nation may be determined. In common with all Semitic races, the

Arabs seldom reared imposing monuments to the dead. No trace of a

tomb which enclosed the body of any of the Ommeyade khalifs has been

discovered; the very place of their erection was lost in the tempest of

ruin which accompanied the Almoravide conquest. The few existing in the

Alhambra were simple marble sarcophagi, without ornament, upon whose

lids were sculptured long inscriptions in letters of gold on a ground

of blue. Of these slabs but one remains, for the tombs, abandoned to

the curiosity of the rabble when Granada was taken, perished, and the

bones of the princes who had illumined all Europe by their genius and

learning were unceremoniously cast outside the walls.

Deprived to a great extent of the artistic resources to be obtained

from the representation of the forms of animal life, the Moslem

utilized with unrivalled skill the segments of geometrical figures and

the graceful foliage of the vegetable world for the manifold purposes

of decoration. Every line in the complex designs of mosaic is the side

or the curve of a polygon, a circle, or an ellipse; the eminently

beautiful domes of wood and of stucco were suggested by the symmetrical

productions of nature,--the hemispherical were modelled after the

section of an orange, by which name they were known to the Arab; the

stalactitic were striking adaptations of the pomegranate divested of

its seeds. The arabesques are but reproductions of vines and tendrils

combined in wonderful mazes of tracery; the lotus, that sacred emblem

of India and Egypt whose mysterious significance was long a secret of

the sacerdotal office, is sculptured upon panel, cornice, and capital;

the rose nestles amidst the entwined ornamentation of the walls; the

frondage of the palm is simulated by the sweeping arches which cross

and intersect like the drooping branches of the date-forests of the

Nile. By other classes of natural and inanimate objects, by the jewels

of the firmament, and by the denizens of the sea, was contributed

the inspiration that imparted to architectural adornment its choicest

forms of elegance and beauty. The great marble shell, fifteen feet in

diameter and carved from a single block, which covers the sanctuary of

the Mosque of Cordova, is one of the most curious and highly finished

works that ever proceeded from the chisel of the Moslem sculptor. Its

fidelity to nature, its perfect proportions, the striking position it

occupies, render it one of the most interesting objects in the ancient

temple whose holy of holies it embellishes. Stars are scattered in

endless profusion throughout the Alhambra; in the centre of mosaic

designs; through the belts of floral patterns which encompass the

halls; in the lofty ceilings, where in the uncertain light their golden

lustre recalls the sparkle of their originals on the spotless ground of

the Southern heavens.

The painted windows, sparingly distributed in buildings erected

by the jealous Moslem, were yet one of their most enchanting and

characteristic features. No trace of them appears in the constructions

of the khalifate; their existence during the age of transition is a

matter of conjecture; and it is only in the last half of the final

period of Hispano-Arab architecture that this art attained its highest

development. The labors of the Gothic artist have from time immemorial

been celebrated as the most perfect of their kind; and the jewelled

designs whose tints illumine the aisles of mediæval cathedrals would

seem to be of incomparable brilliancy of color and harmony of effect.

And yet competent judges have pronounced that these superb works were

rivalled, if not surpassed, by the rich and elegant combinations of

Arabian genius. There is no reason to believe that the execution of the

windows was inferior in beauty to the decoration of the walls; the same

dexterity of hand, accuracy of eye, and correctness of taste must have

presided over both; and a glaring deficiency in any prominent part must

have been prejudicial to all. The patience which was not exhausted by

years of toil upon an object intended for the uses of the harem, and

to be seen by comparatively few, would not be likely to neglect the

designs whose gorgeous hues were a principal attraction of the palace,

the ornament and the glory of the capital. The stained glass employed

was of every color, and corresponded in pattern with the arabesques

of the interiors; and the blazons and devices of royalty disposed at

intervals through the mass of ornament reminded the observer of the

greatness of the monarch under whose auspices the work was completed.

The exquisite charm of these effects when combined with those of the

walls and cupolas must be imagined, for no description can convey an

adequate idea of their surpassing excellence.

Such was the rise, the progress, the culmination of architectural

construction and embellishment in the states of Mohammedan Spain. The

modifications--dependent upon economic conditions, upon wide and varied

acquaintance with the masterpieces of other races, upon the development

of more correct conceptions of the harmonious and the beautiful--which

were undergone by this branch of the arts are more pronounced than

is usually noticeable in the material and intellectual progress of a

people from a state of barbarism to the highest point in the scale

of civilization. The character of the Arab is, however, anomalous,

independent of precedent, and apparently subject to few of those laws

whose operation prescribes the career and fixes the ultimate fate of

nations. The simplicity of form and comparative absence of decoration

characteristic of a nomadic race are conspicuous in its first great

architectural achievement,--a temple dedicated to the unity of God.

In glaring contrast appears the culminating effort of its labors, a

palace reared for the purposes of voluptuous indulgence, where even

the principles of durable construction were apparently sacrificed

to the pomp and prodigality of excessive adornment, a precursor of

impending dissolution, an unmistakable indication of decadence. Thus

the Arabs, like all races that preceded them, have recorded their

deeds in the forms and inscriptions of their architectural monuments;

permanent registers of the grandeur and depth of religious sentiment;

suggestive memorials of proficiency in the arts of peace; potent

manifestations of national genius, energy, and culture.

The artistic tastes of the Moslems, always largely controlled by

pious considerations, were displayed, not only in the construction

of splendid edifices, but in the embellishment of their most common

accessories. The well-curbs, cylinders of marble or of enamelled

pottery, girdled with raised inscriptions in gold and originally placed

in court-yards, are examples of the persistence of Oriental tradition

as well as of the reverence with which the Arab regarded that element

which was the most precious treasure of the Desert.

The use of water for the purposes of ceremonial lustration is a custom

of unknown antiquity. It was constantly employed in the sacerdotal

mysteries of Egypt, India, Persia. The inhabitants of those countries

venerated it as representing an active force in their systems of

cosmogony. The Egyptians worshipped the Nile; the Hindus still

sacrifice to the Ganges. By the former the rare geological formation

of water crystals was regarded with peculiar reverence, because the

drops thus mysteriously inclosed in their transparent envelope were

believed to be spirits imprisoned by divine agency. In the traditions

of Phœnicia the sacredness of springs was continually referred to; the

Greeks assigned to each element a place in Olympus; the superstitious

Roman sculptured his well-curbs with scenes of mythology or with

graceful garlands of flowers. No nation of antiquity, however, ascribed

such extraordinary importance to the divine virtues of water as the

Hebrews. In the time of Abraham wells were regarded as of peculiar

sanctity. Their locality confirmed the sacredness and obligation

of an oath; it was a token of alliance, a place of reconciliation

for enemies, a symbol which ratified and enforced the validity of

contracts. The only permanent characteristic recognized by the nomadic

Israelite was the possession of a well, which established the residence

and station of his tribe.

The sacred character which invested the sources of water was

intensified by the climatic conditions which magnified its importance

and increased its value. It is not strange that the heat and drought

of the Desert should have imparted to that indispensable fluid some

of the beneficent attributes of Divine Power. The unsettled state of

tribal existence is attributable solely to its scarcity. Its profusion

was synonymous with fertility, prosperity, abundance. Its prominence,

actual and symbolic, in the Jewish religious system constantly recurs

in the Bible. The Hebrews made use of it on every important occasion,

in every ceremony which called for the exercise of its mysterious

virtues. They sprinkled it over the victims of sacrifice. They purified

themselves with it before entering the precincts of the Temple.

The veneration with which they regarded its ceremonial usage was

transmitted to Christianity, which has consecrated its application as

a rite indispensable to salvation. The dispersion of the Jews by the

Romans familiarized every nation that received them with their customs,

and not a few adopted the latter after more or less modification. Many

of the fugitives settled in Yemen and other parts of Arabia, where

their influence subsequently played an important _rôle_ in the

formation of the creed of Mohammed, whose doctrines are so largely

of Hebrew and Christian derivation. From them the Arabs absorbed many

traditions centuries old, which had been transmitted through numerous

nations to the credulous Jews, who thus became the depositaries of all.

In the extensive and varied domain of the industrial and the useful

arts, Hispano-Arab genius developed no less grace and dexterity than in

the conspicuous and permanent creations of the architect. The effect

of Koranic restrictions was to impede all advance until the artisan

evaded or openly disregarded them. To the last, however, the universal

prevalence of that religious sentiment, which was at once the incentive

and the power of Islamism and inspired the skill that designed even

the most homely articles of domestic use, as well as the exquisite

ornaments of the palace, was disclosed by all the products of Arabian

industry. Texts from the Koran were carved upon the wooden stamps

used by the baker. They formed the bit of the key that unlocked the

great door of the castle. On swords and knives, on vases and thimbles,

on garments and banners, on the massive bracelets of the rich, on

the rudely fashioned but highly treasured amulets of the poor, were

engraved or embroidered legends of pious origin and significance. These

objects have for the greater part disappeared. The prejudice fostered

by centuries of unrelenting hostility, the aversion entertained by

the ministers of an antagonistic and triumphant faith, have, as far

as human diligence could accomplish it, destroyed all the smaller and

more inconspicuous evidences of Moorish civilization. The durability

of their materials, the excellence of their workmanship, and the

multiplicity of uses to which these articles were destined, would imply

that vast numbers of them would still be met with, especially in the

old Moslem provinces of Spain. But such is not the case. The hatred of

the Spaniard for everything Mohammedan extended even to the inanimate

objects on which his vanquished enemies had exercised their skill, and

which were at once suggestive of heresy and, indirectly, of his own

ignorance and mechanical incapacity. It was the Christian custodians

of the Mosque of Cordova who broke to pieces its magnificent pulpit

and lectern for the jewels and ivory they contained; it was Ximenes,

one of the greatest scholars of his time, who raised in the square of

Granada the funeral pyre of Arabic literature; it was Philip II., the

most powerful of European sovereigns and the worthy representative

of his nation and his age, who ordered every stone in Toledo which

bore an Arabic inscription to be destroyed. Much perished by the

African invasions and the bloody seditions which followed them. Many

articles of gold and silver, far more precious for their workmanship

than for their intrinsic value, were consigned by the ignorant and

the avaricious to the blow-pipe and the crucible. In the face of such

indiscriminate and systematic destruction, whose spirit even massive

edifices have not been able to withstand, it is not strange that so few

of the minor objects of general utility have survived. Indeed, the work

of ruin has been so thorough that there are now many educated persons

in Spain who refuse to credit the artistic ability of the Saracens, on

account of the dearth of evidence produced by the instrumentality of

their own ancestors.

Chief among the branches of mechanical industry in which the Spanish

Moors excelled was the treatment of metals. The casting of bronze,

especially in large pieces,--an art requiring the greatest skill

even in our day,--they understood to perfection. The specimens which

have been preserved exhibit a smoothness unusual in works of this

description, and reveal no subsequent finish with the burin or the

file. Not only statuary, but utensils for worship as well as for

domestic use--lamps, censers, vases, knives, cups, and hundreds of

other articles--were produced by this convenient process. Their

ornamentation, especially when they were destined for the service of

the mosque, was rich and graceful; interlaced with the arabesques

were pious mottoes and inscriptions; in some the parts in relief

were gilded. An exquisite Arab vase, which tradition referred to

the Crusades, but which most probably derived its origin from the

Mussulmans of Spain, was for several centuries used in the baptismal

ceremony of the infant princes of France.

The complete destruction of portable objects of the Mohammedan period

during the centuries of ignorance and fanaticism which followed the

Reconquest may be inferred from the non-existence of Moorish lamps,

necessarily one of the most common utensils of both temple and

habitation. It is a matter of historic record that in the Great Mosque

of Cordova were suspended nearly two thousand; and, as there were seven

hundred other edifices devoted to the worship of Islam in the Saracen

metropolis, the number in use in that city was obviously immense, and

the total amount throughout the empire must have been incalculable.

And yet, of all these, not one is known to have survived uninjured.

The so-called lamp of the Alhambra, which was captured at the taking

of Oran and is supposed to have belonged to the mosque of that palace,

is the only remaining example of this branch of Arab art once so

flourishing, but which, with innumerable others, disappeared forever

with the Castilian occupation. Their connection with the detested

worship of Mohammed no doubt supplied the motive for this thorough

annihilation.

Arabic lamps were of various metals, gold, silver, copper, or bronze.

They contained two or more lights, placed one above the other, their

rays being tempered by a polygonal screen, whose sides presented

different patterns in arabesques cast or carved in the metal, producing

a charming effect from the illumination within. From the base usually

hung four spheres of open-work formed of lotus or palm leaves and

pomegranates, and which exhibited verses of poetry or Koranic

legends,--reminiscences of the “knops and flowers” which were suspended

from each branch of the sacred candlestick in the Hebrew Tabernacle.

In addition to metals, glass of different colors was frequently

employed in these works of art, whose exquisite finish constituted

their greatest value. The materials were almost always obtained from

the spoil of Christian churches,--from the gold and silver vessels of

the altar, from the candelabra and from the bells,--trophies which

gratified the piety of the Moslem, and contributed in no small degree

to the pride and exultation of victory.

Accident or good fortune has preserved for the examination of posterity

a few of the numerous images which the Arab artists cast in bronze.

Among them are a lion and a gazelle, whose history cannot be traced,

but which the researches of archæology have assigned to one of the

sumptuous palaces which adorned the suburbs of Cordova. These rare

and interesting evidences of Moslem dexterity no doubt originally

formed part of a fountain; they belong to the most advanced period of

the khalifate; the forms are somewhat grotesque, but the mechanical

execution is not inferior in delicacy to that of the best examples of

the present age. Cufic legends are inscribed upon them, and there are

indications that their eyes were formed of precious stones, as was the

custom in Moorish Spain.

The frequent recurrence of the lion among the sculptures of Moslem

civilization attests the symbolic importance with which that animal

was regarded by those whose religion prohibited the representation of

every species of animal life. In Arabic tradition that royal beast had

acquired an important, almost a sacred, significance. With the eagle,

it had been assigned a place in the eighth heaven of the Mohammedan

faith. From the earliest ages its strength and ferocity had awakened

the awe of the superstitious and imperfectly protected tribes of the

Desert. It was recognized as the representative of power; the emblem

of energy, nobility, and courage. With the Spanish Arabs, these

sentiments of fear and respect were intensified by considerations of

policy, custom, and tradition. In the enchanting gardens of palaces

reared by the greatest khalifs stood bronze statues of lions with eyes

of rubies and emeralds. They were the supporters of the arms of the

Nazerite kings. Their marble effigies guarded the entrance to the royal

mint. In the famous court of the Alhambra, they replaced the twelve

oxen that sustained the brazen laver of Solomon, of which the fountain

of that palace is an imitation. The Moslem princes of the Peninsula

gloried in the title of “Lion of Battle.” Arabic tradition was in time

confirmed and strengthened by the influx of Persian ideas through

constant intercourse with the Orient, where the lion was a symbol of

the Principle of Good.

The art of damascening metals was, as the name itself implies, of

Syrian origin, and was practised as early as the twelfth century. In

its application to arms and armor the Moorish artificers of Spain had

no superiors. Exquisite specimens of their skill have descended to our

time, not only in helmets and cuirasses,--trophies of many a bloody

field,--but in the suits eagerly sought after in intervals of peace

by the knights of Christian Europe. The arms forged upon the Tagus,

whose waters, it was supposed, possessed some peculiar property that

imparted an unrivalled temper to blades of steel, were famous even

during the Visigothic domination. Under the Moors, however, the weapons

that issued from the armories of that ancient city attained their

greatest excellence and reputation. Toledo did not by any means enjoy a

monopoly of this manufacture, which was carried on with great success

in many other towns; the swords of Seville especially enjoyed a wide

and deserved celebrity. This chosen weapon of the Arab was cherished

with peculiar pride and fondness. Upon its hilt and scabbard were

lavished the finest efforts of the enameller’s and the jeweller’s art.

The temper of its blade was of such perfection that an iron rod could

be easily cloven without its edge exhibiting the slightest blemish.

Broad and heavy, as was required by the rough usage they were destined

to undergo, these weapons were curiously wrought with gold and silver

tracery, alternating with quaint or pious inscriptions. No nation

excelled the Spanish Moslems in the costly and exquisite adornment of

their arms. The hilts were not infrequently of massy gold enriched

with many colored enamels and set with gems. The scabbards, of purple

or scarlet velvet, glittered with filigreed and jewelled mountings.

Of most capricious forms were the guards, sometimes representing the

heads of elephants or dragons, at others carved in ovals, globes,

and crosses; always inlaid with arabesques of the precious metals,

representing floral designs and intricate geometrical figures, with the

omnipresent legend, suggestive of the unquenchable fervor of the Moslem

faith.

The peculiar veneration with which the Hispano-Arab regarded his

favorite weapon is thus disclosed by the beauty and excellence of

its form and materials and by the sacred texts inscribed upon its

blade. Many considerations contributed to invest the sword with a

religious character, and to enhance its moral influence as well as its

material value. Its adoption was intimately connected with the most

cherished associations of the Arab race. Its use was derived from the

Hebrews, that nation of common ancestry, mode of life, and historical

traditions. It was carried by the cherubim who guarded the gates of

Paradise. The Khalif Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, whose valor was

proverbial, rejoiced in the appellation of the “Sword of God.” Although

not a weapon adapted to the desultory warfare of a nomadic people, it

had won the victories of Islam from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas, from

the Oxus to the equator. It had established the prowess of the champion

of the tribe in many a chivalric encounter before the camel’s-hair

tents grouped in the unbroken solitude of the Desert. Its manufacture,

perfected at Damascus, had travelled to the Spanish Peninsula in the

train of the Ommeyade partisans, who sought protection and honor under

the beneficent rule of that famous dynasty; and it was in Syria that

Biblical and Koranic tradition placed the forge of Tubal-Cain, the

first of smiths and armorers. Popular superstition imputed to it many

mysterious and talismanic attributes, such as the emission of peculiar

odors and the utterance of a groan at the death of the owner. In the

Arabic language, as already stated, a thousand different names are

used to designate the sword, a fact which indicates the significance

attaching to this weapon, ever in the hand of the warrior, as well

as the infinite capacity of the idiom in which its varieties and its

qualities are expressed.

The last epoch of Moslem civilization was especially remarkable for

the ingenious processes and exquisite workmanship developed in the

fabrication of vitreous mosaics and filigree jewelry. The Moorish

craftsmen understood the difficult art of encrusting metals with

various crystals and artificial stones; their enamels were of every

color and of exceeding fineness; their goldsmiths had acquired

such dexterity that they could make a single grain of that metal,

beaten into a sheet, cover a space of fifty-six square inches. Their

wares, originally Byzantine in style, kept pace with the progress of

other branches of artistic industry, and, before the close of their

domination, were not inferior in any respect to those made in Italy and

Germany four centuries afterwards.

In the glyptic art, as developed by the Spanish Arabs, the inclination

to the mysterious and the supernatural, common to all members of the

Semitic race, found full expression. The traditional seal of Solomon,

whose wonderful power made the forces of nature and the genii of the

spirit world alike subservient to his will, confirmed the hereditary

belief of the Moslem in amulets, charms, and talismans. The device

of that famous ring is variously supposed to have been the ineffable

name of God, or a star formed by the combination of two equilateral

triangles. Be this as it may, its magical virtues were a part of the

creed of every uneducated Arab, in whose mind the idolatrous and

superstitious practices of Paganism seemed ineradicable. The imaginary

talismanic qualities of certain stones--such as the carnelian, the

garnet, and the onyx--had far more connection with their popular use

than any passion for ornament or love of display. Many were regarded

as specifics for various ailments, others were efficacious in averting

the malign influences of sorcery. The engraving of gems conformed to

the general principles and characteristics of the arts as pursued by

the Arabs. The process of the cameo does not seem to have been adopted

by them, but the word itself, which does not exist in the vocabularies

of antiquity, would seem to be derived from the Arabic kamh, meaning

“hump” or “projection.” The name or monogram of the owner, a verse of

the Koran, a wreath of entwined foliage, a complex design of geometric

lines and curves, these were the sole objects upon which the talents

of the artist might be legitimately exercised. As in ancient Egypt,

when the name of Deity appeared in the inscription, it was placed on

the highest part of the stone; and this concession to celestial dignity

was observed even in the signets of the proudest of sovereigns. Here

also artistic skill was greatly hampered by the prohibition relating to

the representation of animal life, but no example of its violation in

this department of the arts is known to exist. The engraved stones of

the Spanish Mohammedan period are notable for the sharpness of their

lines, the harmony of their patterns, and the grace and delicacy of

their ornamentation. Signets formed the greater number, but amulets

constituted no small part of the productions of the Moorish lapidary.

The hand, symbolic of the five cardinal precepts of Islam, and the

heart, whose mystic influence is still tacitly recognized even by

Christian nations, were the favorite forms in which objects of this

kind were carved. These two were considered as especially efficacious

in counteracting the dreaded power of the evil-eye. The inscription

of the signet was not only a mark of the individuality of the owner,

but indicated his piety by its formulas from the Koran, a love of

ostentation too frequently a trait of the Arab character, and hardly

reconcilable with the constantly inculcated spirit of religious

humility. On the other hand, the more devout Moslems were always

accustomed to remove their rings during the hour of prayer.

In none of the countries of Europe did the ceramic art attain such

excellence in materials, design, and execution as in Mohammedan Spain.

The conquest of Africa was the first signal for its development, and

from that time its progress was steady and rapid. The fragments

of porcelain dating from the khalifate, while showing Byzantine

features, reveal the germs of that perfection of form and style which

characterize the vases of the latest period, when the products of the

potteries of Valencia and Malaga were exported to the utmost limits of

the commercial world. Even the shattered specimens of unglazed clay

that have come down to us are remarkable for the symmetry of their

lines, and suggest the finest models of Grecian and Roman origin. The

influence of Persia--whose colonists settled at Granada, and whose

traditions exerted such a marked effect upon the civilization of the

Peninsula--is plainly discernible in all the most elaborate efforts of

the potter’s skill. Besides the island of Majorca, whose towns were

noted for their ceramic wares, eight cities of Moorish Spain were

engaged in this lucrative and artistic branch of industry. Of these

Malaga ranked first; the extraordinary lustre by which her ceramics

were distinguished defied imitation. The peculiarity of this pottery

consisted in the brilliancy of the enamels, into which one or more

metals were introduced in such a manner as not to interfere with its

transparency and yet to retain all the beautiful reflection to be

obtained from a metallic surface. This unique appearance has been

supposed by some writers to have been produced by alloys of different

kinds, laid in a stratum of almost inconceivable thinness upon the

bisque. By this means a play of colors, iridescent in character,

was obtained, whose brilliancy or softness was dependent upon the

predominance of one or the other of the metals employed. The glaze was

effected by the application of silicates. In this method of decoration

silver and copper were most frequently used, along with those gorgeous

colors whose harmonious adaptation to ornament of every description

was so thoroughly understood by the Moorish artist. When the copper

was united with silver the latter diminished the intensity of lustre,

and produced the most superb effects. The combinations of different

metals exhibited an indefinite variety of beautiful hues, whose

exquisite delicacy could only be compared to the iris-like refraction

of mother-of-pearl. This singular process imparted the double quality

of transparency and distinctness of coloring in a very high degree,

for, examined at an angle and in a strong light, the sheen of the

metallic ingredients could be readily discerned, while at the same time

the tints which formed the base of the ornamentation appeared with

undiminished brilliancy through the shining and transparent enamel. It

is scarcely necessary to observe that the finishing operations of these

works of art demanded the greatest skill and experience.

The forms of the Hispano-Arab vases were suggestive of those of the

classic amphoræ. Largest above the centre, and tapering rapidly towards

the base, they were designed to be placed in metallic stands or upon

hollow wooden pedestals. Their curves were exceedingly graceful,

their decorations most profuse and elaborate. The handles were large

and massive; in some instances covered with arabesques, in others

representing hands grasping human eyes,--talismans against demoniac

influence. The designs of the latter were often radically different

in the same vase, yet they harmonized so perfectly with the work as a

whole that the closest inspection was required to detect any want of

resemblance. The colors most affected by the Arab potter were blue,

white, black, brown, and yellow, and their dexterous and exquisite

combinations afford convincing proof of his remarkable proficiency.

While this industry--probably originally derived from Assyria and

Egypt--was improved by the Etruscans and brought to perfection by

Greece and Rome, it disappeared with the influx of the barbarians, who

trampled in the dust every token of European civilization. Revived

during the early years of the khalifate, its history is a record of

continued improvement.

The traditions of the Orient, the models of antiquity, the absorbing

passion of the Persian for flowers, were all adopted and perpetuated

in Mohammedan Spain. The beauties of the rose and the tulip were

celebrated alike by the poets of Andalusia and Cashmere; and the

national predilection for the blossom of the latter is recalled by

its appearance upon the magnificent and unique vase of the Alhambra.

The Moorish potters did not restrict themselves to the more brilliant

colors; they possessed also neutral tints, and, by the skilful blending

of both, succeeded in producing that perfect harmony of design and tone

which is perhaps the greatest charm of their artistic efforts. They

anticipated by three hundred years the methods rediscovered by Palissy,

which wrought such a revolution in the manufacture of porcelain. The

Moorish secret of metallic enamelling is now completely lost, along

with the pre-eminence once enjoyed by Spain in every department of the

ceramic art, and few specimens of pottery of undoubted Arabic origin

remain. The royal ordinances published by Ferdinand IV. and Charles

V., at the instance of the Inquisition, prohibited the possession

of articles of Moorish manufacture, and were, no doubt, directly

instrumental in causing the destruction of innumerable objects of

priceless value, whose discovery might result in the confiscation of

property and a lingering death by torture.

The mosaics which were such a prominent factor of the architectural

decoration of the Mohammedan period constituted a notable branch of

this important industry. The use of vitrified materials in building

is an art of high antiquity. It was familiar to India, China, Assyria,

long anterior to the dawn of historical narration. Glazed tiles were

used in the palaces of Chaldea twenty-three hundred years before the

Christian era. They covered the interior walls of the pyramid of

Sakkarah, the oldest in Egypt. The fragmentary specimens found in the

ruins of Assyrian cities are identical in color with those preferred

by the Arabs. The Greeks employed them in the embellishment of the

temple of Theseus. They were adopted by the Arabs in the construction

of the tomb of Mohammed. Among the Moors of Spain, the process

reached its greatest development, and the permanent character which

distinguishes it has preserved for the admiration of modern times some

of the most original artistic effects wrought by the prolific genius

of Hispano-Arab civilization. Suggested by the Byzantine mosaics,

from which, however, it differed essentially in material and design,

it was never able to rival them in splendor, although in durability

it far surpassed those rich and brilliant productions of the artists

of Constantinople. The patterns of the latter were floral, those of

the former geometrical. In the one, the effects were produced by

colors seen through minute cubes of glass; in the other, by intricate

combinations of opaque pieces of porcelain.

Like all articles manufactured in the Moorish potteries of Spain,

mosaics were subjected to a long and tedious method of preparation.

They underwent a threefold baking process before and after painting

and when glazed. Metals were used in their composition, and in rare

instances the peculiar iridescent decoration for which Malaga was

renowned was employed. The evident costliness of this must have

prevented its adoption, except in edifices of the greatest importance,

for no example of it exists even in the Alhambra.

The fabrication of leathern hangings--whose surface exhibited the

play of many hues brightened with gold and silver--was early one of

the specialties of Cordovan industry, from which city it derived its

name. Superb effects must have been produced by this curious tapestry,

embossed and gilded, stamped and embroidered with graceful arabesques,

and suspended between rich and capricious cornices of stucco and dadoes

blazing with a score of colors in mosaic. These elegant hangings find

no counterpart in modern decorative art save perhaps in the finest

binding of a book. Goatskins formed the material, but the process by

which they were prepared and ornamented passed away from the Peninsula

with the expulsion of the Moriscoes, and its memory alone remains in

the leather of Morocco, the most valuable known to commerce.

In the perfection of their textile fabrics, the Spanish Moors

demonstrated their infinite superiority to all contemporaneous nations.

In other kingdoms of Europe, silk was reserved for the use of royalty.

Constantinople alone, by reason of its relations with the Orient,

was able to provide a limited supply of this precious material.

From Sicily the manufacture had been introduced into Spain, and, as

already mentioned, was the most lucrative industry of Granada in the

days of its greatest prosperity. After the eleventh century, in both

those countries all classes used this fabric, elsewhere regarded as

so valuable; the garments of men and women of the middle class of

Granada were made of it, as were also the uniforms of the royal guards

of Norman Palermo. The lightness and strength of these silks were

remarkable, and their beautiful ornamentation displayed to the utmost

the finished efforts of the designer and the artisan. The great Moslem

banner captured at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and preserved

in the Abbey of Las Huelgas near Burgos is an elegant example of the

weaver’s art. Upon the ground of crimson silk appear inscriptions,

medallions, and interlacing curves, interwoven in blue, white, green,

and yellow. The harmonious arrangement of these colors denotes the

exercise of the greatest taste and dexterity. Throughout the maze of

graceful designs the name of God appears thousands of times, emblazoned

in gold. In the patterns of the cloaks and robes of royal personages,

mingled with brilliantly tinted arabesques, rich floral embroidery,

and formulas from the Koran, appeared portraits of the owners, in the

colors of nature, depicted with consummate skill. The tiraz, or tunic

of Hischem II., preserved in the Museum of the Academy of History at

Madrid, is the only specimen of this branch of the textile fabrics for

which the khalifate of Spain was so celebrated now to be found in the

world.

Modern science with all its improvements has never been able to equal

in strength and delicacy of texture the products of the Moorish looms

of the Peninsula. The extraordinary permanence of the dyes employed

in these fabrics constitutes one of their best established claims

to superior excellence. Of the few examples which have survived the

revolutions of ages, little, if any, diminution of brilliancy in

color is discernible. In this department of industry, also, Asiatic

influence, transmitted successively through Byzantine and Sicilian

channels, was disclosed in the manufactures of Mohammedan Spain, a

country whose life and traditions have bequeathed to our times so

many impressive reminiscences of the luxurious Orient. In numerous

other fields of industry was the artistic and inventive spirit of the

Hispano-Arab artisan developed,--in damascened treasure-chests of iron

and steel, the complicated structure of whose locks is the wonder of

the mechanic of to-day; in furniture, inlaid with precious and aromatic

woods, and embellished with ebony, tortoise-shell, and pearl; in

gem-incrusted caskets of ivory and onyx which Christian superstition

has not deemed unworthy to enshrine the relics of her saints; in

manuscripts, upon whose bindings fortunes were lavished, embossed with

jewels, glittering with silver, lapis-lazuli, malachite, and gold.

The art of calligraphy, so greatly appreciated by the Arabs that it was

styled The Golden Profession, and in which the Spanish Moslems acquired

extraordinary proficiency, was developed, under the Khalifates of both

the East and West, to a condition of almost absolute perfection. Before

the invention of paper, their parchments exhibited a luxury which far

surpassed that of the Byzantines, until that time the most renowned

calligraphists in the world. The skins they used had a ground of gold

or silver or were dyed of various colors,--scarlet, green, purple,

blue, and black; their lustre was so great that they reflected light

like the polished surface of a mirror. Their inks were also of many

kinds; their brilliancy and durability exceeded those of any known to

modern manufacture; the writing in distinctness, accuracy of alignment,

and elegance--accomplishments in which the Mussulmans of Spain, who

wrote a peculiarly graceful hand, excelled all the other nations of

Islam--rivalled the most finished labors of the compositor; in epistles

and documents destined for royalty the characters were written in

liquid gold. The manuscripts were enriched with illuminations, an art

which, carried into France and Italy, was subsequently borrowed by

the mediæval monks, whose missals represent the highest, and, indeed,

almost the sole, artistic manifestations of their time. The designs of

the Arabs were not only geometric, floral, and grotesque, they included

medallion portraits and representations of men and animals delineated

with astonishing skill. These products of Moorish talent and ingenuity

have, so far as is known at present, entirely perished; their curiously

wrought borders, without the mysterious and unintelligible script which

was supposed to contain formulas for the invocation of evil spirits,

were alone sufficient to proscribe them.

The knowledge of the various mechanical processes referred to in this

chapter--methods by which the artistic conceptions of Arabic genius

were endowed with form and stability--has absolutely vanished. Not

only is this the fact, but even all tangible evidences, upon whose

existence was dependent the reputation for proverbial dexterity

enjoyed by the Moorish artisan, have been destroyed, and we are

forced to rely for their enumeration and character upon the vague and

imperfect accounts of ill-informed and often unfriendly historians.

In the eyes of the fanatic Castilian, everything derived from Moslem

sources was necessarily tainted with heresy. The articles of luxury

displayed in such profusion by the vanquished were indisputable proofs

of mental superiority, and, as such, offensive to his pride. He

denounced the splendidly bound and embossed volumes of the libraries

as magic scrolls, whose contents should be regarded by good Christians

with every demonstration of aversion and contempt. The mysterious

and unfamiliar characters of the Arabic alphabet assumed in his

superstitious eyes the symbols of witchcraft, sorcery, and incantation.

He hastened to prohibit the use or preservation of the souvenirs of

Moslem culture and power by sumptuary laws, whose provisions were

enforced by every resource of original and ingenious cruelty. In the

estimation of the clergy, Mohammedanism, blasphemy, and scientific

knowledge were, to all intents and purposes, synonymous terms. Without

taste to admire or capacity to emulate the achievements of Arabian

skill, alike inestimable for their variety and excellence, they could

at least annihilate the material evidences of that civilization whose

monuments were at once an open challenge and a secret reproach. How

thoroughly this congenial task was performed has been described in

these pages. No people mentioned in history who rose to eminence in the

various arts that contribute to national glory or domestic happiness

have left behind them so few memorials upon which their title to

superiority can be founded. But while the architectural remains have

been defaced and destroyed, the libraries abandoned to the flames, the

mechanical processes that gave to the world artistic results unrivalled

in that age and unapproached in this, have been neglected and

forgotten, priceless treasures, representing years of industry, broken

to pieces for the sake of the materials of which they were composed,

tens of thousands of skilful artisans exiled, plundered, murdered,

there still remained in the public mind the impression insensibly

produced by contact with a race of superior attainments, which, in

its turn, was destined to form the germ of a new and far more widely

extended civilization.

Africa, despite its innate barbarism, exercised some influence on the

arts in Spain. As the Moslem conquest was planned in that country, so

it subsequently became the avenue by which architectural and artistic

ideas were transmitted to the people of the Peninsula, many of whom

were natives of its soil. By the latter, still under the spell of

Ommeyade culture and traditions, the crude, robust, and semi-barbaric

conceptions of Mauritania were, however, soon refined and improved

beyond recognition. The door of the Mosque of the Aljaferia at

Saragossa, and an arch in the Cathedral of Tarragona, are almost the

only remaining examples of the primitive African style. The Almohade

princes made a more distinct and permanent impression on architecture

than any sovereigns who had preceded them. They introduced many novel

and striking features in exterior mural ornamentation. They were

the first to make use of the raised terra-cotta work, the graceful

festoons, the glazed bricks of many colors, which render the Giralda of

Seville the most elaborate and majestic tower ever reared by the hand

of an architect. While the largest and most superb, this magnificent

minaret had yet many counterparts, in all but size, throughout the

provinces of Moorish Spain. Those attached to the mosques of Toledo,

Valencia, and Almeria were but little inferior to it in elegance. Their

prominence, and the uses to which they were destined, were sufficient

to insure their early demolition. The modified African style differed

from that of the khalifate in that it was more florid than graceful,

and exhibited a barbaric love of pomp rather than an inclination to

observe the principles of good taste and just architectural proportion.

The artistic relics of a people are the surest criterion of its manual

dexterity, its material progress, its intellectual culture. The paucity

of souvenirs relating to the Hispano-Arab period has in certain

quarters, as already mentioned, raised serious doubts as to the claim

of that race to mediæval supremacy.

The same skepticism as to the influence of the literary and

philosophical principles adopted and promulgated by the Mohammedans of

Spain prevailed for centuries. After a closer acquaintance with the

educational facilities they possessed, the scientific methods they

employed, the intimate mercantile relations they established with every

state accessible to commerce, the extent of that influence becomes

strikingly apparent. Even among the descendants of the conqueror, bound

by faith and tradition to eternal hostility, it was, and is still,

manifested in a thousand forms. There is to-day in the Spaniard far

more of the romantic and artistic temperament of the Saracen, whose

blood is a reproach, than of the sullen ferocity of the Goth, whose

lineage is the glory of Castilian ancestry. Reminiscences of that

domination which seven centuries of warfare were required to overthrow

survive in the forms and ornamentation of garments; in the terms, the

construction and the pronunciation of language; in the crude imitation

of mosaic effects; in the florid sculpture of magnificent cathedrals.

In other countries of Southern Europe, their traces, while not so

marked or general, are none the less distinguishable; Moorish customs

and traditions, eminently congenial to the national disposition of Gaul

and Latin, reacted strongly upon the literary and social life of France

and Italy. In the latter country the glowing artistic conceptions of

the Arab speedily succumbed to the omnipresent examples of classic

genius; in France they were somewhat more persistent; in both

countries they exercised no unimportant influence in the suppression

of barbarism, in the promotion of efforts that tend to the material

improvement of society, in the cultivation of politeness, in the

revival of letters.