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.