The Puerta de los Leones, or the southern entrance giving access to the transept, is perhaps of a more careful workmanship as regards the sculptural decoration. The door[{364}] itself, studded on the outside with nails and covered over with a sheet of bronze of the most exquisite workmanship in relief, is a chef-d'œuvre of metal-stamping of the sixteenth century, whilst the wood-carving on the interior is among the finest in the cathedral.
The effect produced on the spectator within the building is totally different. The height and length of the aisles, which are buried in shadows,—for the light which enters illuminates rather the chapels which are built into the walls between the flying buttresses,—astonishes; the factura is severe and beautiful in its grand simplicity.
Not so the chapels, which are decorated in all manner of styles, and ornamented in all degrees of lavishness. The largest is the Muzarab chapel beneath the dome which substitutes the missing tower; except the dome, this chapel, where the old Gothic Rite (as opposed to the Gregorian Rite) is sung every day in the year, is constructed in pure Gothic; it contains a beautiful Italian mosaic of the Virgin as well as frescoes illustrating Cardinal Cisneros's African wars, when the battling prelate thought it was his duty to bear the crucifix and Spanish rights[{365}] into Morocco as his royal masters had carried them into Granada.
The remaining chapels, some of them of impressive though generally complex structure, will have to be omitted here. So also the sacristy with its wonderful picture by the Greco, and the chapter-room with the portraits of all the archbishops, the elegant carved door, and the well-preserved Mudejar ceiling, etc. And we pass on to the central nave, and stand beneath the croisée. To the east the high altar, to the west the choir, claim the greater part of our attention. For it is here that the people centred their gifts.
The objects used on the altar-table are of gold, silver, jasper, and agate; the monstrance in the central niche of the altar-piece is also of silver, and the garments worn by the effigy are woven in gold, silk, and precious stones. The two immense grilles which close off the high altar and the eastern end of the choir are of iron, tin, and copper, gilded and silvered, having been covered over with black paint in the nineteenth century so as to escape the greedy eyes—and hands!—of the French soldiery. The workmanship of these two rejas is of the most sober Spanish[{366}] classic or plateresque period, and though the black has not as yet been taken off, the silver and gold peep forth here and there, and show what a brilliancy must have radiated from these elegantly decorated bars and cross-bars in the eighteenth century.
The three tiers of choir stalls, carved in walnut, are among the very finest in Spain, both as regards the accomplished craftsmanship and the astonishing variety in the composition. The two organs, opposite each other and attaining the very height of the nave, are the best in the peninsula, whilst the designs of the marble pavement, red and white in the high altar, and black and white in the choir, only add to the luxurious effect produced by statues, pulpits, and other accessories, either brilliantly coloured, or else wrought in polished metal or stone.
The altar-piece itself, slightly concave in shape, is the largest, if not the best, of its kind. It is composed of pyramidically superimposed niches flanked by gilded columns and occupied by statues of painted and gilded wood. The effect from a distance is dazzling,—the reds, blues, and gold mingle together and produce a multicoloured mass reaching to the height of the[{367}] nave; on closer examination, the workmanship is seen to be both coarse and naïve,—primitive as compared to the more finished retablos of Burgos, Astorga, etc.
To conclude: The visitor who, standing between the choir and the high altar of the cathedral, looks at both, stands, as it were, in the presence of an immense riddle. He cannot classify: there is no purity of one style, but a medley of hundreds of styles, pure in themselves, it is true, but not in the ensemble. Besides, the personality of each has been lost or drowned, either by ultra-decoration or by juxtaposition. A collective value is thus obtained which cannot be pulled to pieces, for then it would lose all its significance as an art unity—a complex art unity, in this case peculiar to Spain.
Neither is repose, meditation, or frank admiration to be gleaned from such a gigantic potpourri of art wonders, but rather a feeling—as far as we Northerners are concerned—of amazement, of stupor, and of an utter impossibility to understand such a luxurious display of idolatry rather than of faith, of scenic effect rather than of discreet prayer.
But then, it may just be this idolatry and[{368}] love of scenic effect which produces in the Spaniard what we have called religious awe. We feel it in a long-aisled Gothic temple; the Spaniard feels it when standing beneath the croisée of his cathedral churches.