Part 5

Simplicity and a love of the elementary characterise also the colouring of the decorations. On the stucco work only the primary colours were used: blue, red, and yellow. The secondary colours occur only in the dados of mosaic. The green groundwork of much of the ornamentation as it is to-day was formerly blue, time having changed the tint of the metallic pigment employed. The decoration of the surfaces seems to have been planned with strict regard to the colouring they were to receive. Both as regards decoration and colour, allowance must always be made for innovations since the Alhambra passed into Christian hands.

“Let us look for a moment,” writes Mr. John Lomas, “at some points of detail--more especially of the ornamentation. Wherever the eye falls, it may rest upon some fine bit of arcading or peristyle, so delicate in the transparent tracery of its spandrils, in the rich work of its capitals, and its slenderness of pillar, that one marvels at first how such fairy-like construction could stand for even a single generation. ‘Lovers’ tears’ they call this lace-work, and they tell one to stand just within the dim hall or vestibule, and get a vision of the blue sky that appears beyond as a little cloud of sapphires. But it is surely better--an insight into a piece of truer art--to stand outside the eastern kiosk of the Lion’s Court and looking through spandril, vestibule, and sala, catch the light glinting through the distant opposite windows. That is transparency of effect, indeed! One would like to meet with the architect who thought it out.

“Some of the irregularities which obtain here seem almost incredible. What could be more satisfactory than this range of exquisite arcading, its slender palm-like stems, its gracefully stilted arches, and the fairy filigree-work of the spandrils? There seems to be not one single point that can offend the justest eye, and yet there are nearly a dozen different archings, differing in form, or height, or width; the cloister varies in breadth at every turn; the upper galleries are uneven; the doorways are the personification of self-will; the columns are placed, sometimes singly, sometimes grouped, and the numbers of them on the respective sides in no way correspond.... And, nevertheless, there is an all-prevailing symmetry--and harmony. The whole is a triumph of accurately judged effect.”

In a foot-note Mr. Lomas adds: “As an instance of the careful way in which the architects of these olden days went to work, it may be mentioned that the exact relation between the irregular widths of cloistering on the long and short sides of the court is that of the squares upon the sides of a right-angled triangle. This obtaining of beautiful symmetry through irregularity is a strangely lost art.”

We will now proceed to a more detailed description of the Palace of Al Ahmar.

THE PATIO DE LA MEZQUITA AND ADJACENT BUILDINGS.

Recent researches have shown that the ancient ingress to the Palace of the Alhambra was by a doorway leading into what is now the chapel. It is square in shape and has long been walled up. Above it may be deciphered the following inscription: “O place of the high kingdom and asylum of prodigious aspect! Thou hast achieved a great victory, and the merits of the work and of the artificer [are] the glory of the Imam Mohammed. The Shadow of the Most High [be] upon all!” This text is believed to refer to Mohammed III. (1302-1309).

The chapel, which had been established by Ferdinand and Isabel adjacent to the Patio de los Leones, was transferred to this part of the Palace of Philip IV. in 1621. At that time a fine chimney-piece in the Renaissance style was converted into an altar. The apartment contains but few remains of its Moorish builders. Without, is the Patio de la Mezquita, with an exquisite façade, much disfigured by a modern gallery. The walls are adorned with the oft-recurring device, “God alone is Conqueror,” and with sentences extolling the sultans, in various sorts of arabesques. The inscription round the central window refers to Mohammed V. (1354-1391).

The grand Mosque of the Alhambra was built in 1308 by Mohammed III., and was in good preservation until the occupation of the French, who, according to Gayangos, entirely destroyed it. An account of it has been left to us by Ibn-ul-Khattíb, the Wizir of Yusuf I.: “It is ornamented with mosaic work and tracery of the most beautiful and intricate patterns intermixed with silver flowers and graceful arches, supported by innumerable pillars of polished marble; indeed, what with the solidity of the structure which the Sultan inspected in person, the elegance of the design, and the beauty of the proportions, the building has not its like in this country, and I have frequently heard our best architects say that they have never seen or heard of a building which can be compared with it.” Little more remains of this superb temple than the small oratory entered through a door in the wall opposite the altar of the chapel. Here the _mihrab_ is still to be distinguished. Before it, Yusuf I., in the act of prayer, fell a victim to the poniard of an assassin in the year 1354.

Adjacent to the _mihrab_ is the ruined tower of Puñales, which presents many architectural points of difference from the rest of the palace, and has features which may have suggested these characteristics of the Mudejar style seen in other parts of Andalusia. The principal window of the tower was furnished with a wooden balcony with lattices similar to those seen in Constantinople and Cairo.

Retracing our steps across the Patio de la Mezquita, we reach the spacious Court of the Myrtles or of the Fish-pond (Patio de los Arrayanes, or de la Alberca). This is the court first entered by the visitor through the modern entrance. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the palace, and gives a foretaste of the glories that lie beyond. One feels immediately transported to the East. “The originality of the architecture [says Don Francisco Pi Margall], the airy galleries, its rich _alhamis_ or alcoves, the splendid apartments of which glimpses are obtained through its arches, the fountains and foliage, the reflection of its stuccoed walls in the waters of the pond, the murmur of the breezes that agitate the dense myrtles, the transparency of the sky, the silence that reigns all about--all oppress the soul at the same time, and leave us for some moments submerged in a sea of sensations which reveal to us little more than the harmony of the whole scene.” The court forms an oblong, bounded at the north and south by two galleries supported on eight columns of white marble, and to the east and west by walls pierced with doors and twin-windows covered with arabesques, but differing in degree of ornamentation. At each angle we find an _alhami_ or alcove, where the Moors were accustomed to laze away the day, extended on rich carpets and divans. The walls of these little places are encrusted with reliefs in stucco, their roofs are of the stalactite pattern. Along the middle of the court extends the _alberca_ or fish-pond, its margins hidden by orange trees and myrtles. The clear water gushes up into two round basins at either end. To the north, the prospect is closed by the battlemented Tower of Comares, to the south by the walls of the Palace of Charles V. Through one of the entrances can be seen the fountain in the Patio de los Leones. The court is redolent of the languor, voluptuousness, and splendour of the East.

Each arcade is composed of seven semicircular arches, the central one reaching up to the cornice, while the others, much lower, are closed with perforated woodwork or lattices. The roof of the southern gallery is of artesonado or troughed form, and bears seven small cupolas; over the central arch of the northern gallery is a single cupola painted with little gold stars on a blue ground.

In this court there are numerous inscriptions, of which the following are the most important.

“Go and tell true believers that Divine help and ready victory are reserved for them.”

“I am like the nuptial array of a bride, endowed with every beauty and perfection.”

“Truly Ibn Nasr is the sun, shining in splendour.”

“May he continue in the noontide of his glory even unto the period of his decline.”

In the Patio de la Alberca is an arch differing altogether from all others in the Palace. Only one surface is decorated, and that with a principal or guiding figure made out by colours. The ornaments approximate more closely than is usual in Moorish architecture to natural forms, and the arch has very much of a Persian character.

This court is believed to have constituted the division between the male apartments, frequented by the general public, which we have already described, and the _Harem_, or private quarters, including the Patio de los Leones, &c.

We pass through a beautiful arch decorated with tasteful floral designs, into the Sala de la Barca, or ante-room of the Hall of Ambassadors. This fine apartment, formerly radiant with colours, was seriously damaged in the fire of 1890. The ceiling of this hall, says Owen Jones, “is a wagon-headed dome of wood of the most elaborate patterns, receiving its support from pendentives of mathematical construction so curious that they may be rendered susceptible of combinations as various as the melodies which may be produced from the seven notes of the musical scale; attesting the wonderful power and effect obtained by the repetition of the most simple elements.”

Beyond this hall rises the Tower of Comares, appearing to rest on the slenderest pillars and almost to be balanced in the air. The real supports have been purposely kept out of sight. The view from the summit of the massive battlemented tower is magnificent. From this platform, Washington Irving remarks, the proud monarchs of Granada and their queens have watched the approach of Christian armies, or gazed on the battles in the Vega. The walls of the tower are of surprising thickness.

The interior, which is a square of 37 ft. by 75 ft. high up to the centre of the dome, is occupied by the Sala de Embajadores, the reception-room of the Sultans. It is the largest and perhaps the most imposing of the halls of the Alhambra. Lifting our eyes, we behold a glorious, airy dome, of artesonado work, with stars and painted angles. Owen Jones is of opinion that the present ceiling replaced an earlier one, which was supported by an arch of brick. The hall lacks its former pavement of marble, its central fountain, and the lattices that filled in its twin-windows. But it is still adorned by a beautiful mosaic dado (known as _sofeisfa_) reaching to the wooden cornice. Numerous are the Kufic and African inscriptions introduced into the decoration, the motto of Al Ahmar being frequently repeated. Opening on to the hall are nine alcoves, each with twin-windows, which have replaced balconies. The alcove opposite the entrance was the site of the Sultan’s throne, as the long poetical inscriptions testify. What gorgeous assemblies must have filled this saloon in bygone years--and what tumultuous scenes and fateful decisions must have been here enacted!

THE PATIO DE LOS LEONES AND ADJACENT APARTMENTS.

The Patio de los Leones (Court of the Lions) occupies, with the chambers opening on to it, the south-eastern quarter of the Palace. “There is no part of the edifice that gives us a more complete idea of its original beauty and magnificence than this,” says Washington Irving, “for none has suffered so little from the ravages of time. In the centre stands the fountain famous in song and story. The alabaster basins still shed their diamond drops; and the twelve lions, which support them, cast forth their crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The architecture, like that of all other parts of the palace, is characterised by elegance rather than grandeur; bespeaking a delicate and graceful taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When one looks upon the fairy tracery of the peristyles, and the apparently fragile fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe that so much has survived the wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of earthquakes, the violence of war, and the quiet, though no less baneful, pilferings of the tasteful traveller: it is almost sufficient to excuse the popular tradition, that the whole is protected by a magic charm.”

The court is an oblong measuring 116 ft. by 66 ft. On each side is a peristyle or portico, and at either end a graceful pavilion with a fine dome. The supporting marble columns are 124 in number and 11 ft. high. They are placed irregularly, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs--an arrangement which does nothing to mar the general impression of harmony. The arches exhibit a similar variety of curve, and spring from capitals decorated with rich foliage of various designs. The space above the arches is filled in with the usual arabesque work, and adorned with verses from the Koran. The ceilings of the porticos are enriched with delicate stucco work, and the walls are covered to a height of five feet with a dado of blue and yellow azulejos, bordered with blue and gold enamelled escutcheons bearing an Arabic motto on a bend.

In the centre of the court is the fountain from which it derives its name. This is composed of two basins (in Moorish times there was but one) supported by twelve marble lions. These Arabian sculptures, remarks Ford, are rudely but heraldically carved, and closely resemble those to be seen supporting Norman-Saracenic tombs in Apulia and Calabria. “Their faces are barbecued, and their manes cut like the scales of a griffin, and their legs like bedposts, while a water pipe stuck in their mouths does not add to their dignity.” Indeed, the consolatory reminder contained in the tremendously long inscription round the basin, that there is nothing to be feared from these creatures, for “life is wanting to enable them to show their fury,” seems ludicrously unnecessary. As specimens of Arabian sculpture they are in all probability unique; the builders of the Alhambra were evidently not over-strict in the observance of their religion. The inscription referred to has been versified by Valera, and runs into forty-four lines of Castilian.

On the south side of the Patio de los Leones is the Sala de los Abencerrages (Hall of the Beni Serraj), so called because it is believed to be the scene of the massacre of thirty-six chiefs of that tribe by order of Boabdil. A reddish vein in the marble flooring is pointed out as the victims’ indelible bloodstains. The story has only the slenderest historical foundation, and was first circulated by a writer of the name of Ginés Perez de Hita, who lived in the sixteenth century. According to some, the usurper Aben Osmin (1446) was beheaded here by order of the prince Muley Hassan; but others, writing of that confused period of Granadine history, say the tyrant fled to the mountains. This chamber, perhaps the most elegant in the Alhambra, does not seem a likely place for deeds of blood. It is entered through a wonderfully graceful arch, growing out of, rather than springing from, marble shafts. The chamber is a square, prolonged on the east and west by two _alhamis_ or alcoves, which are entered through exquisitely-curved arches. But the glory of the Sala de los Abencerrages is its roof--its plan like that of a star, with pendants or stalactites, and sixteen windows in its vaultings.

“Its thousand stalactites,” writes Don Francisco Pi Margall, “its colours, its innumerable archings, its crowns of stars, its complicated depressions and projections, its cones, its polygons, its accidents of light, the effects of chiaroscuro, present it at first sight as something confused, indefinable, indecipherable, resplendent, and vague, like that broad band, the Milky Way, which crosses the pavilion of the heavens. Yet in reality it is most regular, although irregular in appearance; the compass of the geometrician had more to do in planning it than the genius of the artist; but its lines are so many, and their combinations change so rapidly, that the scheme is only to be comprehended after a long and patient study.”

The azulejos which face the walls date from the time of Charles V. In the centre of the hall is the marble basin beside which the Beni Serraj are fabled to have been slain.

Opposite this hall, on the north side of the Lions’ Court, is the Sala de las Dos Hermanas (or, of the Two Sisters), so called after two twin slabs of marble let into the pavement. An exquisite arch gives admittance from the court to a narrow corridor, which communicates on the right with the upper storey, and with the mirador or latticed balcony, from which the ladies of the Harem would gaze into the _patio_ below. The hall is as rich, as graceful, as suggestive of Eastern luxury and repose as that which we have just left. In each wall is an arched opening, two being entrances, the others admitting to alcoves somewhat more shut off than in other parts of the Alhambra. Above each arch is a window corresponding to the apartments in the upper storey, now vanished. The roof exhibits the same marvellous combinations of geometrical forms, the same confused symmetry, as are seen in the Sala de los Abencerrages. Indeed, this hall is generally (but not universally) considered the more admirable of the two. The surface of the walls is hidden beneath costly reliefs of stucco and azulejos. Inscriptions on the sixteen medallions and cartouches have been deciphered into a long poem by Ibn Zamrek, composed in honour of Mohammed V., and translated into eleven verses of Spanish by Valera. One verse exhorts us “to look attentively at my elegance and reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration; here are columns ornamented with every perfection, the beauty of which has become proverbial.”

In this magnificent apartment formerly stood the famous vase (_el jarron_), which tradition says was discovered in one of the subterranean chambers of the Palace, full of gold. It is now in the little Alhambra Museum. The vase, which dates from the fourteenth century, and is beautifully enamelled in white, blue, and gold, is described by Baron Davillier in his work on Spanish Pottery.

Beyond the Hall of the Two Sisters is a long, narrow apartment called the Sala de los Ajimeces (Hall of the Twin Windows). Its ceiling and decorations are little inferior to those of the larger hall. On the north side opens the exquisite Mirador de Lindaraja, or prospect-chamber, affording a delightful view of the garden beyond. In wealth of detail and ornamentation, this little bower of fifteen by ten feet surpasses all other parts of the Palace. In Moorish days the Sultanas could look from behind the lattices of the three windows across the town and the plain of the Vega. When their eyes wearied of the prospect they could scan the numerous poetical effusions traced upon the walls.

Returning to the Patio de los Leones, we enter, at its eastern extremity, the Sala del Tribunal, or de la Justicia. This hall consists of seven chambers opening on to a common vestibule. The four small rooms are square, and are separated by three larger oblong apartments. The same gorgeous colouring, the same profusion of geometrical ornamentation, here as elsewhere in the Alhambra! The arch over the central small chamber, or divan, is perhaps the finest in the whole Palace. But what renders this hall the most remarkable in the edifice is that it contains what are probably the only existing specimens of mediæval Muslim figure painting. The ceiling of the central alcove or _alhami_ is adorned by a painting representing ten personages, who were formerly supposed to be judges, whence the name given to the hall. They were intended, more probably, to represent the first ten sultans of the Nasrite dynasty. The painting, like those in the other alcoves, is done in bright colours (gold, green, red, &c.) on leather prepared with gypsum. The designs appear to have been sketched in brown. The paintings in the other _alhamis_ are of an even more interesting character. In the first, a castle with square towers and battlements is seen; outside it is a lion led in chains by a maiden, whose hands are rudely grasped by a savage with shaggy hair and beard. A rescuer hurries to her assistance in the person of a Christian knight, armed _cap-à-pie_. On the other side of the picture, the same knight is shown attacked by a Moorish cavalier, who plunges a lance into his breast. The Moor is evidently out hunting, for beneath the combatants’ horses his dogs are chasing the wild boar and fox. From the towers of the castle two fair ladies observe, with evident pleasure, the Christian’s overthrow. In another part of the picture both knights are shown, following the chase; and a page is seen, leaning against a tree, with sword and shield, presumably awaiting his master’s return.

The second painting is entirely devoted to hunting scenes. Moors are seen chasing the wild boar, while the Christians occupy themselves with bears and lions. The huntsmen are also seen returning and offering the spoils of the chase to their ladies. The Moor greets his sultana with a benign and condescending air; the Christian warrior kneels to the lady and offers his prize.

The most competent critics have now arrived at the conclusion that these paintings are of the fourteenth century, and therefore executed under the Muslim sovereigns, in defiance of the precepts of the Koran. Whether they were the work of a Mohammedan it is not so easy to say. Gayangos has pointed out remarkable similarities between these paintings and those in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and on the whole it is probable that they were executed by an Italian artist, whom the Muslims may not have scrupled to employ to do a thing for them unlawful. A parallel instance of casuistry is that of London Jews, who on certain feasts employ Christians to perform forbidden menial offices. It should also be said that in the opinion of some modern Muslim doctors the prohibition of sculpture and painting is not to be taken as absolute.

In the Sala de la Justicia was found a basin for ablutions, now in the Museum, on which are interesting reliefs of lions, deer, and eagles. According to the inscription, this was designed in 1305 for the service of the mosque, a fact which seems to support the view of the authorities just mentioned.

It was in this hall that Ferdinand and Isabel caused Mass to be celebrated after the Reconquest, and here that the cross was set up by Cardinal Mendoza. The devices of the Catholic sovereigns--the Yoke and Sheaf of Arrows--have been introduced into the decoration of the alcoves.

The ruinous tower and apartment to the south of the Hall of Justice, called the Rauda, appears to have been the mausoleum of the Sultans. The niches in which the _turbehs_ were placed may still be distinguished, and the long, narrow trough used for the purification of the corpse. In the Museum may be seen three tablets with the epitaphs of the Sultans Yusuf III. and Mohammed II. and of a prince Abu-l-Hejaj, probably the former’s son.