The Industrial Arts in Spain

by Juan F. Riaño

It appears at first sight difficult to explain why the Spanish Moors decorated these objects with the representations of animated beings, against the precepts of the Koran, and the reason why these objects of undoubtedly Moorish origin have been preserved until the present day in the treasuries of Spanish cathedrals. The prohibition of the Koran to represent animated beings is, however, not so strict as is generally supposed; it is reduced to the following sentences. "O Believers! Wine and games of chance, and statues and the divining arrows, are only an abomination of Satan's work! Avoid them that ye may prosper." [Sura v. ver. 22.] Later commentators on the Koran have added the severest prohibitions against painters and artists who represented animated beings, but to very little effect, and we find in contemporary authors numerous details of the specimens of sculptures and paintings which were in the houses of Moorish magnates. Coins, textile fabrics, furniture, and other objects which have reached us, leave no doubt that the representations of animated beings were constantly used by the Spanish and Eastern Arabs from the first century of the Hegira.

The fact that these Moorish caskets should have been used for preserving the relics of saints in Spanish churches, is explained by the custom common in the middle ages in Spain and other countries, of offering war spoils and treasures brought from long and distant peregrinations, and even objects of natural history, to the different churches. Alligators may still be seen hanging in churches in Seville, Toledo, Valencia, etc. The Moors did the same thing: the famous warrior Almanssor, the minister of Hischem II. at the end of the 10th century, carried off the bells from the cathedral of Cordova, and had them turned into lamps and used at the mosque of Cordova. We find in ancient writers frequent mention of the custom of Spanish Christians of offering these ivory caskets to the churches, as trophies taken in their warfares with the Moors. The ecclesiastical authorities probably placed them at the time with other valuable objects in the treasuries of the churches, filling them with relics, for such is the manner in which they are found; they have remained untouched from the earliest times and are constantly mentioned in local histories of the cathedrals. We must not suppose that the ecclesiastical authorities ignored their Mohamedan origin, for we find at every step during the middle ages the names of priests who knew and interpreted the Arabic language. The principal reason why these objects of Oriental art have been preserved, is, that the hatred of race and belief between Moors and Christians was by no means as great as has been supposed by modern authors, and certainly never went so far as to destroy objects of industrial and artistic interest. In the year A.D. 1275, certain privileges were granted to Moorish workmen who were set apart and ordered to repair the Mosque at Cordova, at that time already converted into a christian cathedral. During the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries a large number of parish churches were built in Spain in the Moorish style, either by Oriental architects, or Spaniards who had adopted their architecture, and numerous examples might be given of inscriptions and details of ornamentation which confirm most fully these theories.

Objects of ivory carvings of the middle ages, posterior to the 12th century, are frequently met with in Spain. Among the most remarkable is the Virgin de las Batallas, in the cathedral of Seville. This image belonged to St. Ferdinand, early in the 13th century, and the tradition exists that it was carried on the king's saddle in battle. The fine ivory diptychs at the Escorial and Archæological Museum at Madrid must also be mentioned, and a large number of ivory caskets, and fragments, existing in the same Museum and in different Spanish churches.

Notwithstanding, however, the numerous examples of ivory carvings which are still to be met with in Spanish churches and cathedrals, I find no information which enables us to affirm that this artistic industry existed in Spain during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. We find artists mentioned who carved in wood, iron, and silver work, and numerous details of their work, but ivory carvers are never mentioned, if any existed, their number must have been comparatively small; and I am led, therefore, to suppose that the specimens existing in Spain were imported from Italy or France, and for this reason it is necessary to end at the Renaissance the history of ivory carving in Spain.

The inlaid ivory work so constantly used in Spanish furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries, cannot be included in this notice on ivory carvers, owing to its limited character, and the use to which it was employed. One branch of sculpture must be mentioned representing sacred images, which were carved in the 16th and 17th centuries by natives of the Philippine Islands or the Portuguese Colonies. They are frequently met with in Spain, and are remarkable for their bad and careless modelling, a mannered unartistic style, combined with the exaggerated rigidity so common in Chinese and Indian productions. As examples of this style of art may be mentioned the representations of St. Erasmus, and the Immaculate Conception (Nos. 9069, '63, 183, '64), in the South Kensington Museum.

POTTERY AND PORCELAIN.

Roman and Visigothic.—Hispano Moresque earthenware.—Painted, glazed and lustred pottery.—Terra-cotta.—Azulejos (Tile decorations).—Pottery made at Talavera, Valencia, Seville, Triana, Zamora, Puente del Arzobispo.—Unglazed pottery.—Bucaros.—Alcora ware and porcelain.—Buen Retiro porcelain.

ROMAN AND VISIGOTHIC.

THE productions of Ceramic Art have constituted from the earliest times a very important industry in Spain. Fragments of vases of greyish-coloured paste, ornamented with bands or zones, are constantly found in excavations in different localities. It cannot, however, be determined whether they were importations, or imitations made in the Spanish Peninsula. The earliest mention which we find of this industry in Spain is in Pliny (Lib. xxx., cap. xii., line 19, Edition of Paris, 1526-7), who, in praising vases of pottery made in different countries, mentions those of Saguntum (Murviedro) near Valencia. An epigram by Juvenal (Sat. v. xxix.), and several by Martial (iv. 45, viii. 6, xiv. 108) on the same subject, prove that the pottery from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean was very famous at that time.

Count Lumiares, in his work on pottery of Saguntum ("Barros Saguntinos," Valencia, 1779, 8vo), mentions having examined more than 1500 specimens of pottery of different kinds, which he classifies in four groups: grey pottery, cream-coloured pottery, yellow pottery and red glazed ware, with ornamentation in relief (Samian ware); this ornamentation constitutes, in my opinion, the only distinctive feature of the pottery made at Saguntum.