Neither is it surprising that the Spaniard created no architectural school of his own. All he possesses is borrowed from abroad. His love of Byzantine grotesqueness and of Moorish geometrical arabesques is inherited, the one from the Visigoths, and the other[{38}] directly from the Moors. The remaining styles are northern and Italian, and were introduced into the country by such foreigners—monks and artists—as crowded to Spain in search of Spanish gold.
These artists (it is true that some, and perhaps the best of them, were Spaniards) did not work for the people, for there was no bourgeoisie. They worked for the wealthy prelates, for the aristocracy, and for the caciques. These latter had sumptuous chapels decorated, dedicated an altar to such and such a deity, and erected a magnificent sepulchre or series of sepulchres for themselves and their families.
This peculiar phenomenon explains the wealth of Spanish churches in lateral chapels. Not a cathedral but has about twenty of them; not a church but possesses its half a dozen. Moreover, some of the very finest examples of sepulchral art are not to be found in cathedrals, but in out-of-the-way village churches, where some cacique or other laid his bones to rest and had his effigy carved on a gorgeous marble tomb.
These chapels are built in all possible styles and in all degrees of splendour and magnificence, according to the generosity[{39}] of the donor. Here they bulge out, deforming the regular plan of the church, or else they take up an important part of the interior of the building. There they are Renaissance jewels in a Gothic temple, or else ogival marvels in a Romanesque building. They are, as it were, small churches—or important annexes like that of the Condestable in Burgos, possessing a dome of its own—absolutely independent of the cathedral itself, rich in decorative details, luxurious in the use of polished stone and metal, of agate and golden accessories, of gilded friezes, low reliefs, and painted retablos. They constitute one of the most characteristic features of Spanish religious architecture and art in general, and it is above all due to them that Iberia's cathedrals are museums rather than solemn places of worship.
But the Spanish people did not erect them; they were commanded by vain and death-fearing caciques, and erected by artists—generally foreigners, though often natives. The people did not care nor take any interest in the matter; so long as the village saint was not insulted, nor their individual liberty (fuero) infringed upon,[{40}] the world, its artists and caciques, could do as it liked.
This insensibility helped to hinder the formation of a national style. Besides, as the duration of the Spanish nation was so exceedingly short, there was no time at hand to develop a national art school. In certain localities, as in Galicia, a prevailing type or style was in common use, and was slowly evolving into something strictly local and excellent. These types, together with Moorish art, and above all Mudejar work, might have evolved still further and produced a national style. But the nation fell to pieces like a dried-up barrel whose hoops are broken, and the nation's style was never formed.
Besides, contemporary with the birth of the nation was the advent of the Renaissance movement. This was the coup de grâce, the final blow to any germs of a Spanish style, of a style composed of Christian and Islam principles and ideals:
"Es wär zu schön gewesen,
Es hätt' nicht sollen sein!"
Under the circumstances, the art student in Spain, however enthusiastic or one-sided[{41}] he may be, cannot claim to discover a national school. He must necessarily limit his studies to the analysis of the foreign art waves which inundated the land; he must observe how they became localized and were modified, how they were united both wisely and ridiculously, and he must point out the reasons or causes of these medleys and transformations. There his task ends.
One peculiarity will strike him: the peninsula possesses no pure Gothic, Romanesque, or Renaissance building. The same might almost be stated as regards Moorish art. The capitals of the pillars in the mezquita of Cordoba are Latin-Romanesque, torn from a previous building by the invading Arab to adorn his own temple. The Alhambra, likewise, shows animal arabesques which are Byzantine and not Moorish. Nevertheless, Arab art is, on the whole, purer in style than Christian art.