Part 3

The Alhambra, occupying the plateau of the _Monte de la Assabica_, is situated at one extremity of the city of Granada, above which it rises like the Acropolis at Athens. The usual entrance is by the Gate of Justice. From the Gate of Justice we pass the _Puerta del Vino_, or Wine Gate, to the large square called the _Plaza de los Algibes_, or Place of the Cisterns. On the right is the Palace of Charles V.; beyond, but without revealing any indication of its internal beauty, is the _Casa Real_; on the left of the Place of the Cisterns is the _Alcazába_--_Kussábah_, the citadel--long used as a place of detention for convicts. There are several ruined towers here, which are, perhaps, the remains of the most ancient part of the fortress.

The severe and striking aspect of the towers with which the walls of the fortress are studded, arouses no suspicion of the art and luxury enshrined within; they are formed to impress the beholder with respect for the power and majesty of the King; whilst within, the fragrant shrubs and running streams, the porcelains, Mosaics, and gilded stucco work, and particularly the pious inscriptions which are in such profusion upon the walls, constantly reminded the sovereign how all that ministered to his happiness was the gift of Allah.

The inscriptions are of three sorts--“_ayát_,” _i.e._, verses from the Korán; “_asjá_,” pious or devout sentences not taken from the Korán; and, thirdly, “_ash’ár_,” poems in praise of the builders or owners of the Palace. Those belonging to either of the first two classes are generally written in the Cufic character, and the letters are often so shaped as to present a uniform appearance from both sides, and make the inscription readable from the right to the left, and _vice versa_, or upwards and downwards.

The innumerable sentences abounding everywhere in the Alhambra are so harmonious and interweaving--producing such cross-lights of poetry and praise, merging naturally and gracefully when the mind is torpid or indifferent to them, into mere surface ornament--that they are never out of place, but present always an unsatiating charm. Once, at least, an inscription in the Palace has settled a dull controversy respecting the use of the many small, highly-decorated recesses which are seen in the apartments. On each side of the ante-room of the Hall of the Ambassadors is one of these recesses resembling the piscinæ of our cathedrals. Blundering wise men insistently averred that these niches were used by suppliants as receptacles for their slippers before entering to an audience, until an Arabic scholar pointed to an inscription round the aperture, which reads: “_If anyone approach me complaining of thirst, he will receive cool and limpid water, sweet and pure._” Any Spaniard ought to have known that here were the places of the _Alcarraza_, or porous earthen bottles common to all comers, even as they may now be found in the halls of some Andalusian gentlemen.

Such a niche and water-vase are represented in this volume at page 77.

“Is the Alhambra,” asks Ford, “a palace of the _Arabian Nights_, or only a tawdry ruin bedaubed with faded colour? And what of the colour as it exists? Is it emeraldine or plaited flowers? No, in sober truth, the colour is dim and faded; buried in some places under white flaky icicles of whitewash, or blurred and besmirched as a dead butterfly’s wing. Here and

there are revived bright scraps of azure, gold, and vermilion; but generally dull of outline, and dim in low, deep, shadow tone.”

Where the Moorish work is imitated, greens and purples obtrude, to demonstrate how inferior is modern decorative skill to the genius of the ancient Arabs. The dados, or low wainscotings, are of square, glazed tiles, which form a glittering breast-high coat of mail up to the lower third of the Palace

walls. Here the colours are the same as those of the old Majolica ware. Sometimes these _Azulejo_ tiles, with their low-toned enamel colours, are formed into pillars, or pave the floors in squares of _fleurs-de-lis_, or other heraldic emblems. In these dados, colour is seen in the shade. The Moors wanted shade in a country where the sun is solid fire--the colours deep, soft, and subdued as in an Arabian carpet.

The present pavement of the halls and courts of the Palace is either of white marble, as in the Hall of The Two Sisters and Hall of the Abencerrages, or of brick. Seldom, however, does it appear to be the original flooring, as in many places it is considerably above the ancient level, concealing the lower part of the Mosaic dados. On the pavement of one of the alcoves of the Hall of Justice are still to be seen painted tiles which seem to suggest a style of flooring more in harmony with the general decoration of the Halls and Courts than either those of marble or of brick. This deduction has been objected to by persons conversant with the manners and customs of the Mohammedans, who contend that it is impossible that these tiles--on which the name of God is written--should have been trodden under foot. But it should be borne in mind that the Arabs of Spain allowed themselves considerable laxity in observing the behests of the Korán--as is evidenced by the fountain in the Court of Lions, the bas-relief in the Museum of the Palace, and the paintings in the Hall of Justice.

For the student who desires to pursue exhaustively the history of the Moors in Spain, there are but two trustworthy authorities--Don Pascual de Gayángos, the Spanish Orientalist and historian, and Dr. R. Dozy, of Leyden. Don Pascual’s translation of _Al-makkarí_ has been largely drawn upon in the compilation of the present volume, as also the “Handbook” and “Gatherings” of Richard Ford (1845 and onward), which form the bases of the indispensable Murray’s _Guide_. For the last days of the Moslems in Spain, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell’s _Don John of Austria_ must be read. The fascinating volumes of Washington Irving will, of course, continue to delight so long as the English language endures, and no better companions can be wished for on the spot where they were written than his stories of _The Alhambra_ and _The Conquest of Granada_. Mr. Henry Coppeé’s _History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab Moors_, in two volumes, _Boston_ (Mass.), 1881; Miss Charlotte Yonge’s _Christians and Moors in Spain_; Mr. H. E. Watt’s _Spain from the Moorish Conquest to the Fall of Granada_; the concise _Rise and Fall of the Muslim Empire in Spain_, by our fellow-subject, Muhammed Hayat Khan, Lahore, 1897; and Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole’s _The Moors in Spain_ should be consulted.

ORNAMENT.

However much disguised, the whole ornamentation of the Moors is constructed geometrically.

It is probable that the immense variety of Moorish ornaments, which are formed by the intersection of equi-distant lines, could be traced through the Arabian to the Greek fret.

The Moorish system of decoration reached its culminating point in the ornament of the Alhambra. Owen Jones says: “The Alhambra is at the very summit of perfection of Moorish art ... every principle which we can derive from the study of the ornamental art of any other people is not only ever present here, but was by the Moors more universally and truly obeyed. We find in the Alhambra the speaking art of the Egyptians, the natural grace and refinement of the Greeks, the geometrical combination of the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Arabs.

The ornament wanted but one charm, which was the peculiar feature of the Egyptian ornament--symbolism. This, the religion of the Moors forbade.”

The decoration of the Alhambra is peculiarly appropriate--the circumstances of the people rendered the ornament beautiful for that reason--when transplanted, though it loses nothing of its loveliness, it becomes inexpressive.

The Moors ever regarded what architects hold to be the first principle of architecture--to decorate construction--never to construct decoration. In Moorish architecture, not only does the decoration arise naturally from the construction, but the constructive idea is carried out in every detail of the ornamentation of the surface. A superfluous, or useless ornament is never found in Moorish decoration; every ornament arises quietly and naturally from the surface decorated.

The general forms were first cared for; these were sub-divided by general lines; the interstices were then filled in with ornament again to be sub-divided and enriched for closer inspection. The principle was carried out with the greatest refinement, and the harmony and beauty of all Moorish ornamentation derive success from its observance. The greatest distinction was thus obtained; the detail never interfering with the general form. When seen at a distance, the main lines strike the eye; on nearer approach, the detail comes into the composition; upon yet closer inspection, further detail is seen on the surface of the ornaments themselves.

To the builders of the Alhambra, harmony of form consisted in the proper balancing and contrast of the straight, the inclined, and the curved.

As in colour, there can be no composition in which either of the three primary colours is wanting, so in form, whether structural or decorative, there can be no perfect composition in which either of the three primary figures is lacking; variety and harmony in composition and design depend on the pre-dominance and subordination of the three.

In his monumental work on the ornamentation of the Alhambra, the late Owen Jones, who spent many years at Granada in collaboration with his friend, M. Jules Goury, the eminent French architect, studying the Palace of the Western Caliphs, furnishes diagrams in support of this conclusion, which are here reproduced; and, furthermore, says: “In

surface decoration, any arrangement of forms, as at A., consisting only of straight lines, is monotonous, and affords but imperfect pleasure; but, introduce lines which tend to carry the eye towards the angles, as at B., and you have at once an additional pleasure.

“Then add lines giving a circular tendency, as at C., and you have now complete harmony: in this case the square is the leading form or tonic; the angular and curved are subordinate.

“We may produce the same result in adopting an angular composition, as at D., add the lines as at E., and we at once correct the tendency to follow only the angular direction of the inclined lines; but, unite these by circles as at F., and we have harmony still more nearly perfect, _i.e._, repose, for the eye has now no longer any want that could be supplied.”

Still, compositions distributed in equal lines or divisions will be less beautiful than those which require a greater mental effort to appreciate them: proportions the most difficult for the eye to detect will be the most agreeable.

In surface decoration by the Moors, lines flow from a parent stem: every ornament, however distant, can be traced to its branch and root; they have the happy art of so adapting the ornament to the surface decorated, that the ornament as often appears to have suggested the general form as to have been suggested by it. In all cases we find the foliage flowing out of a parent stem, and we are never offended, as in modern practice, by the random introduction of an ornament set down without a reason for its existence. However irregular the space they have to fill, they always commence by dividing it into equal areas, and round these trunk lines they fill in their detail, but invariably return to their parent stem.

The Moors also followed another principle, that of radiation from the parent stem, as we may see exemplified in nature by the human hand, or in a chestnut leaf. When style becomes debased, neither of these laws is followed; as in Elizabethan ornament, where nothing is continuous, nothing radiates, all is haphazard.

All junctions of curved lines with curved, or of curved with straight, should be tangential to each other. The Oriental practice always accords with this principle. Many of their ornaments are on the principle which is observable in the lines of a feather and in the articulations of a leaf; and to this is due that additional charm found in all perfect ornamentation, which is called “the graceful.”

A further charm is found in the works of the Arabs and Moors from their conventional treatment of ornament, which, forbidden as they were by their creed to represent living forms, they carried to the highest perfection. They ever worked as Nature works, but always avoided a direct transcript; they took her principles, but did not attempt to copy her works.

It is true that the Arabs in Spain, as already pointed out, once or twice allowed themselves to disregard the behests of the Korán, as instanced in the Fountain of Lions, and the bas-relief which is now preserved in the Museum of the Alhambra; but the Mohammedan mosques of Egypt, India, and Spain, show everywhere the calm, voluptuous translation of the doctrines of the Korán: an art in unison with its imaginative and poetic teachings which led them to adorn their temples in a manner peculiar to themselves.

COLOUR.

The colours employed by the Moors on their stucco work were in all cases, the primaries--blue, red, and yellow (gold). The secondary colours--purple, green, and orange, occur only in the Mosaic dados; which, being near the eye, formed a point of repose from the more brilliant colouring above. It is true that, at the present day, the grounds of many of the ornaments are found to be green; it will readily be seen, however, on a minute examination, that the colour originally employed was blue, which, being a metallic pigment, has become green from the effects of time. This is proved by the presence of particles of blue colour, which occur everywhere in the crevices: in the “restorations” also, which were made by the Catholic kings, green and purple were freely used.

The colouring of the Courts and Halls of the Alhambra was carried out on so perfect a motive, that anyone who cares to make this a study, can, with almost absolute certainty, on being shown for the first time a piece of Moorish ornament in white, define at once the manner in which it was coloured. So completely were all the architectural forms designed, with reference to their subsequent colouring, that the surface alone will indicate the colours they were destined to receive.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Moors, in their marvellous system of decoration, worked on fixed rules, the effect of their infinite variety leaves the observer under the impression that they arrived at their amazing achievements by instinct, to which centuries of refinement had brought them. One person may naturally sing in tune as another does by acquired knowledge. The happier state, however, is where knowledge ministers to instinct, and this must have been the case with the Moors. Their poet exhorts us to attentively contemplate the adornments of the Palace, and so reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration; this invitation seems to imply that there was in their works something to be learned as well as much that might be felt.

Mr. Owen Jones admits that there is no authority for the gilding of the columns: wherever the columns are of marble, the shafts are always free from traces of colour of any kind. Gold, blue, and red are still seen on most of the capitals, and, in some cases, the plaster half-columns against the walls are covered by mosaic of a small pattern in glazed earthenware. Nevertheless, the eminent authority on decoration is strongly of opinion that the marble shafts could never have been, originally, left entirely white; and, furthermore, he thinks that the general harmony of the colouring above forbids such a supposition; but the conclusion seems to be erroneous, when it is remembered that the shafts of the columns are compared, in the graceful hyperbole of the Inscriptions, to “transparent crystal;” and, again, “when struck by the earliest beams of the rising sun, maybe likened to many blocks of pearl.” Therefore, in view of the poetic reference by Moorish versifiers, and the utter absence of any trace of colour on the marble, it has been thought befitting to omit the gilding of the shafts in the many reproductions in this volume from the beautiful coloured plates in the work of Owen Jones. It should be recorded here that the book alluded to is dedicated “To the Memory of Jules Goury, Architect, who died of Cholera, at Granada, August 28th, 1834, whilst engaged in preparing the original drawings for this work.”

Amongst the illustrations appearing on p. xlix. _supra_, which principally consist of cornices, capitals, and columns in the Alhambra, is a motto in Roman characters: TĀTO·MŌTA--Tanto Monta--pertaining to Ferdinand and Isabella, and which is somewhat out of place in a page otherwise devoted to Moorish ornament. The motto, of course, signifies _tantamount_, and is meant to express an equality in power between the two Sovereigns; Isabella zealously maintaining that her right of exercising the royal authority was equivalent to that of her royal consort: “_Tanto monta Isabella que Hernando, Hernando que Isabella_”--of equal worth are Isabella and Ferdinand. The motto appears in relief in the Court of the Lions.

Acknowledgment is made to the work of the late James Cavanah Murphy, _Arabian Antiquities of Spain_, Lond., 1815, to which source we are indebted for some of the illustrations to the present volume. Mr. Murphy faithfully delineated, and admirably engraved the arabesques and mosaics of the superb Courts and Halls of the Palace of the Alhambra at Granada.

For the rest, it may be said that a vast number of plates have been specially prepared for the present volume; and it is thought a confident expectation may be indulged of a favourable reception to an attempt at preserving the reliques of a romantic pile--the glory and the wonder of a civilised world.

“I PRAY YOU, LET US SATISFY OUR EYES WITH THE MEMORIALS AND THE THINGS OF FAME THAT DO RENOWN THIS CITY.”

_Twelfth Night, Act III., sc. 3._

The Alhambra.

The ancient citadel and residence of the Moorish monarchs of Granada is, indisputably, the most curious, and in some ways the most marvellous building that exists in the whole world. In its period, its architectural style, and artistic effect, it is not without its counterpart in Southern Spain; but the Alhambra was conceived and constructed on so colossal a scale that it is accepted as the last word in Arabian workmanship. From the outside it appears to be a forbidding fortress, and, indeed, its walls are of prodigious strength; but within it is a palace that was once the most voluptuous in the makings and imaginings of man, and in which everything was made subservient to luxury.

The singular fortunes of the Arabian, or Moresco-Spaniards, whose whole existence is a tale that is told, certainly forms one of the most anomalous, yet splendid episodes in history. Potent and durable as was their dominion, we have no one distinct title by which to designate them. They were a nation, as it were, without a legitimate country or a name: a remote wave of the great Arabian inundation cast upon the shores of Europe. From the year 710, when the Arab general Tarif landed at the port which bears his name, and plundered Algeciras, to be succeeded in the following year by a greater soldier, Geb-al-Tarik, whose name survives in the title of “The Rock”--a familiar designation very dear to Englishmen--the course of Moorish conquest from Gibraltar to the cliffs of the Pyrenees was as rapid and brilliant as the ancient Moslem victories of Syria and Egypt. Nay, had they not been checked on the Plains of Tours by Charles _Martel_, who that day gained his _sobriquet_--“The Hammerer”--all France, all Europe might have succumbed to the ravages of the Saracenic warriors as completely as the empires of the East were made to yield, and the crescent might have glittered on the fanes of Paris and of London.

Repelled within the limits of the Pyrenees, the mixed hordes of Asia and Africa that formed this great irruption, gave up the Moslem principle of conquest, and sought to establish in Spain a peaceable and permanent dominion. As conquerors, their heroism was only equalled by their moderation; and in

both, for a time, they excelled the nations with whom they contended. Severed from their native homes, they loved the land given them, as they supposed, by Allah, and strove to adorn it with all that could minister to the happiness of man. By a system of wise and equitable laws they formed an empire unrivalled for its prosperity by any of the empires of Christendom, and diligently drew around them the graces and refinements that marked the Arabian empire in the East at the time of its

greatest civilisation. If the superb remains of Moslem monuments in Spain; if the Mosque of Córdova, the Alcázar of Seville, and the Alhambra of Granada still bear inscriptions fondly vaunting the power and permanency of the dominion of the Moor; can the boast be derided as arrogant and vain? They were the outposts and frontiers of Islamism. The

Southern part of the Peninsula was the great battle-ground where the Gothic conquerors of the North, and the Moslem conquerors of the East, met and strove for mastery; the fiery courage of the Arab being at length subdued by the obstinate and persevering valour of the descendants of the subjects of Don Roderick. But century after century had passed away, and still they retained a hold upon the land.[4] A period had elapsed equal to that which has passed since England was subjugated by the Normans; and the descendants of Musa[5] and Taric might as little anticipate being forced into exile across the Straits traversed by their triumphant ancestors, as the descendants of Rollo and William may dream of being driven back to the shores of Normandy.

With all this, however, the Moslem empire in Spain was but

a brilliant exotic that took no fixed root in the soil it adorned. Severed from all their neighbours in the West by impassable barriers of faith and manners, and separated by seas and deserts from their kindred in the East, they remained an isolated people. Their whole existence was a prolonged and gallant struggle to maintain a foothold in a land usurped. The few relics of the miserable and proscribed race were ultimately expelled from the Peninsula, under the administration of the Duke of Lerma, during the reign of Philip III.--a measure which, by depriving Spain of a numerous and industrious population, inflicted a severe blow on her agriculture and commerce.