carried out exclusively by men of Moorish blood. Tutored by these, the
Christians practised it with great success. Prominent among these last
we find, early in the seventeenth century, the name of Diego Lopez de
Arenas, a Christian-Spaniard and a native of Marchena, who held the
licensed title of master-carpenter and lived for many years at
Seville.[33] In a lucky moment it occurred to Lopez de Arenas to write
and publish for the benefit of his fellow-craftsmen a book upon this
decorative oriental woodwork that had passed into the Spanish national
life. This book, _Carpintería de lo Blanco_,[34] appeared at Seville in
1633, and fresh editions were printed at the same city in 1727, and at
Madrid in 1867. As in the Ordinances of Granada, Seville, and Toledo,
Arabic terms, too copious and too complicated for elucidation here, are
constantly repeated in this book.[35] Much of the general information
which we gather from it is, however, of great interest. Thus, we are
told that with the Spanish artists, as in Egypt, the wood most often
used, no doubt as being the cheapest, was pitch pine, parcelled and put
together in the most elaborate decorative schemes. Such was the
characteristic _alfarge_[36] ceiling of the Moorish, Morisco, and
Spanish-Christian _carpintero de lo blanco_. Its many fragments were
secured upon the frame by long, small-headed nails, or by these nails
combined with glue. If we observe the ceilings from close by, as when,
for instance, they are taken down to be restored, the workmanship
appears to be coarse, inaccurate, and hasty; the myriad pieces to be
clumsily and loosely joined; the nails to be driven in without method,
or even awry. Nevertheless, this false effect betrays the calculating
genius of the craftsman. He planned his work for contemplation by a
certain light and at a certain elevation; and therefore, as the ceiling
is removed again to its appointed distance, it seems to re-create itself
in proud defiance of an error of our own, and grows at once to its
habitual delicacy, harmony, and richness.
[33] Gestoso finds no record of him in the city archives; but from a
rough portrait of Arenas prefixed to his treatise, we judge that
he was born about the year 1580.
[34] Arenas himself defines a _carpintero de lo blanco_ as "he who
prepares and works upon the wood employed in building; also, he
who fashions tables, benches, etc., in his workshop."
[35] "His language abounds in Arabic words and phrases of uncertain
origin, whose meaning (since he wrote for men familiar with this
work) he makes no effort to explain."--Editor's introduction to
the third edition of _Carpintería de lo Blanco_.
[36] Arabic _al-farx_, a carpet, piece of tapestry, or anything that
covers and adorns.
[Illustration: XXI
"ELIJAH SLEEPING"
(_Statue in wood, by Alonso Cano_)]
I have said that the decoration of these ceilings is sometimes floral,
sometimes geometrical, sometimes a combination of the two.[37] Sometimes
the wood is plain, or sometimes silvered, gilt, or painted. Sometimes it
is employed alone, or sometimes variegated and inlaid with plaster
points and patches. By far the commonest motive is the _lazo_--an
ornamental scheme composed of infinite strips that turn, and twist, and
intersect, describing in their mazy passage many polygons. One of these
polygons determines, in a way, the scheme of the entire ceiling, which
is denominated as consisting of "a _lazo_ of eight," "of ten," "of
twelve," etc., from this particular. The most attractive and most
frequent is the scheme "of eight." Among the decorative details used to
brighten and enhance the _lazo_ proper are _mocarabes_ or wooden lacery
for relieving cubes and joists or surfaces, and _rácimos_ or "clusters";
that is, hollow or solid wooden cones or prisms, disposed along the side
and centre panels of the ceiling like (in Arenas' ingenious phrase) the
buttons on a jacket, and contributing to the massive aspect of the
whole. These clusters, too, were sometimes in the stalactite and
sometimes in a simpler form, and show, both in the quantity and richness
of their ornament, a limitless diversity.
[37] This mingled decoration is extremely common; and may be studied in
our country, in the carved panels at South Kensington which are
believed to proceed from the pulpit of the mosque of Kusun; or in
the thirteenth-century panels of the tomb of Es-salih Ayyub.
[Illustration: XXII
SAINT BRUNO
(_By Alonso Cano. Cartuja of Granada_)]
Magnificent Spanish-Moorish, Spanish, and Mudejar ceilings still exist
in Spain. Such are the marvellous domed ceiling in the Hall of Comares
(or of Ambassadors) in the Alhambra, those of the Castle of the
Aljafería at Zaragoza and of the archbishop's palace at Alcalá de
Henares, the Arab _alfarge_ ceilings in the churches of San Francisco
and Santiago of Guadix, that of the Hall of Cortes in the Audiencia of
Valencia, that of the Sala Capitular of Toledo Cathedral, that of the
Chapel of the Holy Spirit of the Cathedral of Cuenca (considered by many
to be the finest _artesonado_ ceiling in all Spain), or those of the
churches of Jesus Crucificado, El Carmen, and San Pablo at Cordova. The
ceiling of the Sala de la Barca, in the Moorish palace of the Alhambra,
was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1890, but a good photograph had
previously been taken, and I reproduce it here (Plate viii.). One of the
later _artesonado_ ceilings is at Cordova, in the parish church of
Santiago. Covered with a _bóveda_ or vault of cane, it is in excellent
preservation, and was made in 1635 by the master-carpenter Alonso Muñoz
de los Ríos, who received for his labour fourteen thousand _reales_.[38]
The _artesonado_ ceilings which Diego Lopez de Arenas tells us in his
treatise that he made for the church, the choir, and the _sobreescalera_
of the monastery of Santa Paula at Seville, as well as a ceiling which
he made for the church of Mairena, are all extant to-day. Other
remarkable examples of this craft are the ceilings of the rooms
constructed to the order of, and which were actually occupied by,
Charles the Fifth, within the precincts of the old Alhambra. Upon these
half-Italian, half-Morisco ceilings and their frieze we read the words,
"_Plus Oultre_"; and the inscription, "_Imperator Cæsar Karolus V.
Hispaniarum rex semper augustus pius f[oe]lix invictissimus_." In one of
the same apartments, known as the "chamber of the fruits," the ceiling
has octagonal _artesones_ of superb effect, though even richer is that
of what is called the Second Sala de las Frutas, conspicuously
influenced by Italian art, and believed by Gómez Moreno to have been
designed by Pedro Machuca and executed by Juan de Plasencia.
[38] Cordova was a famous centre of this craft for many centuries.
Ramírez de Arellano has found and published a notice relative to
Lope de Liaño and García Alonso, two artificers of this city who
signed, on January 7th, 1572, a contract with the prior of the
monastery of the Holy Martyrs to build a ceiling for one of the
chapels of the same. The document, which is quoted _in extenso_ in
the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for November,
1900, abounds in technical expressions, many of them partly or
entirely Moorish.
The same writer publishes the names (hitherto completely unrecorded) of
thirteen other artist-carpenters who worked at Cordova in the latter
half of the sixteenth century and early in the seventeenth. The craft,
in fact, died hard, and ceilings of this kind, replete with Moorish
detail, were made in certain parts of Southern Spain until the closing
moments of the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: XXIII
SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
(_San Juan de Dios, Granada_)]
Marvellous in conjunction with the thousand lighted lamps which served
to manifest its beauties, must have been the primitive ceiling
(_as-sicafes_) of the mosque of Cordova, of which an Arab poet sang;
"Look at the gold on it, like the kindled flame, or like the
lightning-stroke that darts across the heavens."[39] Our notices of this
ceiling, barbarously hacked to pieces by Christian architects, are
neither numerous nor clear. We are told, however, that it was nearly
finished in the reign of Abd-er-Rhaman the First, and terminated
altogether by his son Hixem. New ceilings were added on the enlarging of
the mosque by Abd-er-Rhaman the Second, while fresh additions were made
by Al-Hakem the Second and Al-Manzor. Ambrosio de Morales gives a quaint
description of the earliest, or an early, ceiling of this temple. "The
roof of the whole church, made of wood painted and adorned in divers
ways, is of incredible richness, as will be seen from what I am about
to say. It is of larch throughout, odorous, resembling pine, which is
not found in any part but Barbary,[40] whence it is brought by sea. And
every time that a part of this temple was thrown down for new
constructions to be added, the wood removed was sold for many thousand
ducats for making guitars and other delicate objects. The ceiling was
built across the church upon the nineteen naves thereof, and over it,
covered likewise with wood, the roofs, nineteen in number also, each
with its ridge atop, drooping to one and other side."[41]
[39] That the Moors were proud of their mastery in woodwork is proved by
an inscription in the Torre de la Cautiva at Granada, saying; "In
the plaster and the tiles is work of extreme beauty, _but the
woodwork of the roof has vanquished them in elegance_."
[40] Morales was probably mistaken. "On entering Aragon one sees whole
forests of 'Spanish Cedar' or _alerce_, some of the trees so thick
that they measure four feet in diameter."--Bowles' _Natural History
of Spain_, p. 102.
[41] _Antigüedades de las ciudades de España_ (A.D. 1575), p. 123.
Three pieces made of common pine, and which are thought to have belonged
to the original ceiling of this mosque or to an early replica, are now
in the National Museum at Madrid, but the carving of these fragments is
so simple that in the opinion of Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos the
decoration of the wood itself was purposely subordinated in this
instance to the richness and variety of the painting.
[Illustration: XXIV
CHOIR-STALLS
(_Santo Tomás, Avila_)]
Three types of decorative doors were made in older Spain. In the
earliest and simplest (_lacería en talla_), the _lacería_ or _lazo_-work
is carved directly on and from the solid plank which forms the body of
the door. In the second type, the carver's art is delicately blended
with the joiner's--_lazo_-work with _ensamblaje_. In the third type the
_lazo_-work is _sobrepuesta_--that is, attached to, not elaborated from,
the planking.[42]
[42] José Amador de los Ríos mentions, as a good example of the first of
these types, a thirteenth-century door of the _claustrilla_ in the
monastery of Las Huelgas at Burgos. Other doors in the same monastery
are illustrative of the second type; while all three types are
represented by the doors, described herewith, which close the principal
entrance to the misnamed Hall of Ambassadors in the Alcázar of Seville.
As in the case of ceilings, many and excellent examples of these doors
exist to-day in Spain. Among the most remarkable are several in the
Moorish palace of the Alhambra, such as the two (dating from the end of
the fourteenth century or early in the fifteenth) belonging,
respectively, to the famous Hall of the Abencerrajes (Pl. ix.), and to
the Hall of the Two Sisters (Pl. x.). Apparently it was the former of
these doors which Bertaut de Rouen wrote of in the seventeenth century
as "une porte aussi grande et aussi épaisse comme celles de nos plus
grandes églises. Elle s'ouvre des deux costez, et est toute de pieces
rapportées, et d'un bois de differentes couleurs, comme les beaux
cabinets et les belles tables qui coustent si cher."[43]
[43] _Journal du Voyage en Espagne_, p. 85.
An early Mudejar door proceeding from the church of San Pedro at Daroca
in Aragon is now in the National Museum. This door, which is of larch,
and measures nearly fourteen feet in height by nine in breadth, is of a
simple design and represents a horse-shoe door described within the door
itself. It was originally painted vermilion, with other decorative
painting of a simple character in black, white, and red, and is
fortified with massive iron braces. It is believed to date from earlier
than the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: XXV
CARVED CHOIR-STALL
(_Toledo Cathedral_)]
The mighty doors of the "Hall of Ambassadors," in the mediæval royal
residence of Seville (Plates xi. and xii.), are quite the finest to be
seen in Spain. Although a widespread superstition assigns their
manufacture to a period close upon the Moorish conquest, it has been
proved conclusively that they were made by Mudejar craftsmen of Toledo
at the time when the whole Alcázar was erected more or less upon the
ruins of the old, by Pedro the First of Castile, denominated, according
to the prejudice with which we view his character, "the Cruel," or
"the Just."[44]
[44] The following words record the date of the construction of this
place and its doors, and may be read (Plate xiii.) upon the scroll
of tiles or _alizares_ crowning the principal façade:--
[cross] EL ¦ MUY ¦ ALTO ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ NOBLE ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦
PODEROSO ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ CONQUERIDOR ¦ DON ¦ PEDRO ¦ POR ¦
LA ¦ GRACIA ¦ DE ¦ DIOS ¦ REY ¦ DE ¦ CASTIELLA ¦ ET ¦
DE ¦ LEON ¦ MANDÓ ¦ FACER ¦ ESTOS ¦ ALCÁZARES ¦ ET ¦
ESTOS ¦ PALACIOS ¦ ET ¦ ESTAS ¦ PORTADAS ¦ QUE ¦ FUÉ ¦
FECHO ¦ EN ¦ LA ¦ ERA ¦ DE ¦ MILL ¦ ET ¦ QUATROÇIENTOS ¦
Y ¦ DOS ¦
The observant Swinburne was not misled, like many travellers of to-day,
into believing the Alcázar to be of purely Moorish origin. "Having read
that the Moors built one part of this palace, I concluded I was admiring
something as old as the Mahometan kings of Seville; but upon closer
examination was not a little surprised to find _lions_, _castles_, and
other armorial ensigns of Castille and Leon, interwoven with Arabesque
foliages; and still more so, to see in large Gothic characters, an
inscription informing me that these edifices were built in the
fourteenth century, by the most mighty king of Castille and Leon, Don
Pedro."
These doors, which under a pretence of restoration have been mutilated
more than once, are made of larch, and measure sixteen feet in height by
thirteen feet (including both the leaves) in width. The upper part of
either leaf consists of geometrical and floral ornament in exquisitely
tasteful combination, executed in the scheme known technically, from the
angles at the central polygon, as _lazo de á doce_--"_lazo_-work of
twelve." The decoration of the lower part is more minute, and in the
scheme of _lazo de á diez_--"_lazo_-work of ten." Inscriptions in Arabic
and Latin, many of which are quoted from the Psalms, are distributed on
both sides of the woodwork, and confirm our other evidence that the
doors were made during the reign and in obedience to the orders, of Don
Pedro.
The Plateresco sixteenth-century doors of the Capilla de los Vargas at
Madrid (Plate xiv.) are attributed by Cean Bermudez and by Ponz to an
artist named Giralte, who carved them in walnut with various military
and other scenes from Scripture, alternating with shields and floral
ornament; the whole surrounded by an exquisitely delicate and tasteful
border. Lampérez remarks that the errors of perspective recall the
similar productions of Ghiberti.
[Illustration: XXVI
CHOIR-STALLS
(_Burgos Cathedral_)]
The _celosía_ or decorative wooden window-grating, imported by the
Mussulman conqueror from Egypt and the East, extended to all parts of
Christian Spain, and was particularly used in convents. These gratings,
identical in form and workmanship with those of Cairo,[45] were
attached to projecting windows, so that the women of a household
could look into the street without themselves being seen, a custom which
the Spanish woman still recalls to us by peering, for hours at a time,
between the lowered _persiana_ of her balcony.[46] By the seventeenth
century, which may truthfully be called the age of Spanish jealousy, and
when the "Othello-like revenge of the Moor" had eaten into the very
entrails of society, the _celosía_ had become as indispensable to houses
as the door or window. "La," wrote Bertaut de Rouen of a residence on
the outskirts of Madrid, and obviously alluding to these gratings, "il y
avoit bien des Dames dans l'appartement d'enhaut qui y demeurerent
cachées, se contentant de nous voir promener dans le jardin par les
fenêtres."
[45] "The windows, which are chiefly composed of curious wooden
lattice-work, serving to screen the inhabitants from the view of
persons without, as also to admit both light and air, commonly
project outwards, and are furnished with mattresses and
cushions."--Lane's _Arabian Nights_, vol. i., p. 192.
[46] It is strange that Ford should have confounded the _reja_ with the
_celosía_ (_Handbook_, vol. i., p. 153). However, he opportunely
quotes the Spanish proverb, _Muger ventanera tuercela el cuello si
la quieres buena_ ("The remedy for a woman who is always thrusting
her head from the casement is to twist her neck").
We know from the stone coat of arms which is carved above the doorway of
the "House of Castril at Granada" that in the olden time the balconies
of the Hall of Comares in the Alhambra were fitted with projecting
wooden _celosías_; and Contreras says that in the Torre de los Puñales
of the same palace there used to be "a kind of wooden _mirador_ or
_menacir_, covered with _celosías_ like those of Cairo, and many of
which were still to be seen in Granada early in the nineteenth century."
I am not aware of any Moorish _celosía_ remaining to this day outside a
Spanish building. In such exposed positions weather and the natural
delicacy of the woodwork seem to have destroyed them all. As an interior
ornament, a single one (Pl. xvi.) exists in the Alhambra. Nevertheless,
I hesitate to call this _celosía_ purely Moorish. Perhaps it is the work
of a Morisco, or even of a Christian-Spaniard, for we know that
decorative wooden fittings for the Alhambra were made in the sixteenth
century by Antonio Navarro and other craftsmen. The grating, which is
well preserved, covers a window over the archway leading from the Hall
of the Two Sisters into the Sala de los Ajimeces and the Mirador de
Daraxa, and consists of minute prisms and turned pieces in the typical
Egyptian style.
[Illustration: XXVII
CHOIR STALLS
(_San Márcos, León_)]
Other fittings for a building, wrought in wood by Moorish artists and
by these communicated to the Christian-Spaniards, were balustrades and
cornices, _aleros_ (decorative bands beneath the eaves of a roof, Plate
xvii.) and _zapatas_ (gargoyle-looking figures, often in human form,
used to support a roof or gallery). In the so-called "Patio de las Asas"
of the convent of Santa Catalina de Zafra, at Granada, exists an
interesting Moorish balustrade[47] that seems almost untouched by time.
I reproduce an outline of it as the tailpiece to the present chapter,
and am glad to append the little sketch in question, copied from a
photograph I took upon the spot three years ago, because it is almost
impossible to obtain admission to this convent. Beautiful or uncouth and
quaint _zapatas_ may be seen in the Casa de los Tiros at Granada, and in
many other places (Plates xviii. and xix.). Much of the Moorish woodwork
of the palace of the Alhambra was destroyed by the fire of 1590, but
there yet remain the ample cornice and carved _alero_ of the façade of
the Cuarto de Comares (Plate xx.), which is often called in error the
Court of the Mezquita. This _alero_ bears the following inscription,
allusive to the Sultan Mohammed the Fifth:--"I am the place where the
crown is guarded, and on my doors being opened the regions of the west
believe the east to be contained within me. Algami Billah charged me to
keep guard upon the doorway."
[47] Almagro Cardenas calls it "part of a _celosía_" (_Museo Granadino_,
p. 79); but as it can never have been a window-grating, this term
is incorrect. Gómez Moreno calls it, not too lucidly, "a wooden
balustrade forming squares and rectangular figures in the manner
of a _celosía_" (_Guía de Granada_, p. 421). Valladar (_Guía de
Granada_, edition of 1906, p. 117) calls it simply a balustrade,
and this, it seems to me, is the only term which truthfully
describes the object.
Other remarkable _aleros_ are in the Generalife and in the Court of
Lions of the Alhambra, while, also in this last-named mansion, genuine
Moorish woodwork of elaborately inlaid ebony and larch is in two niches
near the entrance to the Sala de Embajadores.
SACRED STATUARY, _SILLERÍAS_ OR CHOIR-STALLS, AND _RETABLOS_
The genius of the wood-carvers of older Spain is manifested chiefly in
three groups of objects--sacred statuary, choir-stalls, and _retablos_.
Among this people, and probably by reason of its cheapness, plain, or
gilt, or polychrome painted wood has always been a favourite material
for the statues of their temples, whether such statues were employed
alone, or as an accessory to a larger article of sacred furniture, such
as a pulpit, or a _sillería_, or an altar-screen. So powerful, in fact,
has been the vogue of this material here,[48] that even to-day the
Spanish people, making, in Symonds' happy phrase, "representation an
object in itself, independently of its spiritual significance," attempt
to elevate the most remarkable of their wooden, and by preference their
coloured wooden, statuary (typically defended by Pacheco's indigested
tome), to rank beside the noblest and the purest monuments of bronze and
marble; denoting, by this reckless and uneducated partiality, a
positively national misconception of the true domain of art.
[48] My readers are no doubt aware that every Spanish hamlet has its
wooden image of the Virgin, badly executed as a rule, and rendered
doubly hideous by a gaudy gown. Most of these local images are
believed to hold the power of working miracles, or at least to
have been fashioned and conducted to their present shrine by
supernatural agency--on which account the populace and their
pastors call these latter _imagenes aparecidas_, as distinct from
_manufactured_ images. Such are the Virgins of Montserrat, Granada,
and numerous other cities, towns, or villages of this illiterate
and ill-starred Peninsula. The curious may refer for every kind of
detail to Villafañe's _Compendious History of the Wonder-working
Images of Spain_, which numbered in this author's day (his book was
published in 1740) one hundred and eighty-nine. But the most
extraordinary miracle of all was that which is recalled, with pious
gravity, by Bertaut de Rouen. Speaking of the gilt-wood image of
Nuestra Señora del Pilar at Zaragoza, he says:--"On y void quantité
de lampes d'argent et on m'en raconta un miracle qu'il me fut
impossible de ne pas croire. C'est d'un pauvre homme qui ayant eu
la jambe coupée pour une blessure, et s'estant bien recommandé à
_Nostra Señora del Pilar_, il se trouva un jour avec sa mesme jambe
qu'il avoit déja fait enterrer. Y'ay sceu l'histoire du chirurgien
mesme qui coupa cette jambe et de quantité de témoins de veuë. Il
n'y a que quinze ans que cela est arrivé, mais l'homme est mort
depuis peu."--_Journal du Voyage en Espagne_, p. 203.
[Illustration: XXVIII
DETAIL OF CHOIR-STALLS
(_León Cathedral_)]
It is outside the scope of such a work as this to deal at any length
with Spanish figure-sculpture. However, it is only fair to recognize
that Spain produced a couple of score or so of admirable carvers of
wood-statuary. Among the greatest of these craftsmen or _imagineros_
were Becerra, Berruguete, Juan de Juni, author of the _Mater Dolorosa_
("Our Lady of the Knives"), of Valladolid; Gregorio Hernández the
Galician, author of "Simon the Cyrenian," "Santa Veronica," and "the
Baptism of our Lord"; Martínez Montañes, author of "San Jerónimo" and of
the "Cristo del Gran Poder";[49] Solis, Gaspar de Ribas, Juan Gómez,
author of the "Jesus" of Puerto de Santa Maria; Pedro Roldan, with whom,
according to Tubino, "the art of Seville closed its eyes"; and Alonso
Cano, master of Pedro and Alonso de Mena, Ruiz del Peral, José de Mora,
and Diego de Mora, and who carved the exquisite "Elijah Sleeping" (Pl.
xxi.) now at Toledo, and also (as it is believed) the famous statuette
(Frontispiece to the present volume) of Saint Francis of Assisi.
[49] It is due to Martínez Montañes to mention that in many of his
contracts he stipulated that the painters of his statuary should
be chosen by himself, "so as not to corrupt the outline and the
sentiment of the figures."
[Illustration: XXIX
CHOIR-STALLS
(_Plasencia Cathedral_)]