III
ARCHITECTURAL ARABESQUES
Preliminaries
The different periods mentioned in the preceding chapter are characterized by a corresponding art-movement.
The germs of these movements came invariably from abroad. In Spain they lingered, were localized and grew up, a species of hybrid plants in which the foreign element was still visible, though it had undergone a series of changes, due either to the addition of other elements, to the inventive genius of the artist-architect, or else peculiar to the locality in which the building was erected.
Other conclusive remarks arrived at in the foregoing study help to explain the evolution of church architecture. Five were the conclusions: (1) The power and wealth of the Church, (2) the influence exerted[{36}] by foreigners on the country's fate, (3) the individualistic spirit of the clanspeople, (4) the short duration of a Spanish nation, nipped in the bud before it could bloom, and (5) the formation of an oligarchy (caciquismo) which hindered the establishment of an educated bourgeoisie.
The first of the above conclusive observations needs no further remarks, considering that we are studying church architecture. It suffices to indicate the great number of cathedrals, churches, hermitages, monasteries, convents, cloisters, and episcopal palaces to be convinced of the Church's influence on the country and on the purses of the inhabitants.
The Spaniard, psychologically speaking, is no artist; it is doubtful if illiterate and uneducated people are, and the average inhabitant of Spain forms no exception to this rule. His artistic talents are exclusively limited to music, for which he has an excessively fine ear. But beauty in the plastic arts and architecture leave him cold and indifferent; he is influenced by mass, weight, and quantity rather than by elegance or lightness, and consequently it is the same to him whether a cathedral be Gothic or[{37}] Romanesque, as long as it be dedicated to the deity of his choice.
The difference between Italian and Iberian is therefore very marked. Even the landscapes in each country prove it beyond a doubt. In Italy they are composed of soft rolling lines; the colours are varied,—green, red, and blue; the soil is damp and fruitful. In Spain, on the contrary, everything is dry, arid, and savage; blue is the sky, red the brick houses, and grayish golden the soil; the inhabitants are as savage as the country, and the proverbial "ma é piu bello" of the Italian does not bother the former in the slightest.
All of which goes to explain the Spaniard's insensibility to the plastic arts, as well as (for instance) the universal use of huge retablos or altar-pieces, in which size and bright colours are all that is required and the greater the size, the more clashing the colours, the better.