Spain, figuratively speaking, is that island, or a peninsula off the southwestern coast of the Old World, barred from France by the impassable Pyrenees, and forming the link between Africa and Europe: the[{54}] first stepping-stone for the former in its northern march, the last extremity or the rear-guard of the latter.
The breakers represent the different art movements which, born in countries where compact nations were fighting energetically for an existence and for an ideal, flooded with terrible force the civilized lands of the middle ages, and sought to outdo and conquer their rivals.
These breakers were: from the east, early Christian (both Latin-Lombard and Byzantine); from the north, Gothic; from the south, Arab, or, to be more accurate, Moorish. The first two were advocates of one civilization, the Christian or Occidental; the latter was the propagandist of another, the Neo-Oriental or Mohammedan.
The Renaissance was but a second or third breaker coming from the east, which breathed new life into antiquated constructive and decorative elements by adapting them to a new religion or faith.
Later architectural forms were but the periodical revival or combination of one or another of the already existing elements.
Spain, thanks to her unique position, was the point where all these contradictory waves[{55}] met in a final endeavour to crush their opponents. In Spain, Byzantine pillars fought against Lombard shafts, and Gothic pinnacles rose haughtily beside the horseshoe arch and the arc brisé. In Spain Christianity grappled with the Islam faith and sent it bleeding back to the wilds of Africa; in Spain the polygon, circle, and square struggled for supremacy and lost their personality in the complex blending of the one with the other, and minarets, cupolas, and spires combined in bizarre fantasy and richness of decoration to serve the ambitions of mighty prelates, fanatic kings, and death-fearing noblemen.
Such is, rhetorically speaking, the history of architecture of Spain. Cathedrals had a cachet of their own, either national (in certain characteristics) or else local. But the elements of which they were composed were foreign. That is, excepting in the case of Spanish-Moorish art.
Moorish art! In the second volume (Southern Spain), the author of these lines will dedicate several paragraphs to the art of the Moors in Spain. Suffice to assert in the present chapter the following statements.[{56}]
(1) Moorish art in Spain is peculiar to the Arabs who inhabited the peninsula during seven hundred years. Consequently this art, born on Iberian soil, cannot be regarded as foreign.
(2) Much of what is called Moorish art owes its existence to the Christians, to the Muzarabs and Jews who inhabited cities which were dependent upon or belonged to the Moors. In the same way, much of the Oriental taste of the Spanish Christians was inherited from the Moors and received in Spain the generic name of Mudejar.