XVII
CARVED ALERO

These leathers served a great variety of purposes, public or private, sacred or profane. They were used upon the walls and floors of palaces and castles, as table-covers, counterpanes, bed-hangings, cushions, curtains for doors, linings for travelling-litters, coverings of chests and boxes,[27] and seats and backs of chairs and benches (Plate [vii].). In churches and cathedrals, especially throughout the sixteenth century, we find them used as tapestry and carpets,[28] altar-fronts (such as one which is preserved in the chapel of San Isidro in Palencia cathedral), or crowns for images of the Virgin.[29] As time advanced, gold and a coat or so of colour was succeeded by elaborate painting. Thus painted, they were often cut into the forms of columns, pilasters, or friezes in the Plateresco or Renaissance style,[30] until the growing popularity of wall-pictures, together with the importation of French fashions at the death of Charles the Second, crippled and ultimately killed the decorative leather industry of Spain.

CARPENTRY AND WOOD-CARVING

The artistic carpentry of older Spain produced as its most typical and striking monuments, three groups of objects which may be included generally under Furniture. These are the celosía or window-lattice, the door of lazo-work, and the artesonado-ceiling which adorns a hall or chamber, corridor or staircase.

XVIII
CARVED ZAPATAS
(Casa de Salinas, Salamanca)

These happy and effective styles of decoration came originally from the East. Their passage may be traced along the coast of Africa from Egypt into Spain; and they flourished in Spain for the same reason which had caused them to flourish at Cairo. “When we remember,” says Professor Lane-Poole, “how little wood grows in Egypt, the extensive use made of this material in the mosques and houses of Cairo appears very remarkable. In mosques, the ceilings, some of the windows, the pulpit, lectern or Koran desk, tribune, tomb-casing, doors, and cupboards, are of wood, and often there are carved wooden inscriptions and stalactites of the same material leading up to the circle of the dome. In the older houses, ceilings, doors, cupboards, and furniture are made of wood, and carved lattice windows, or meshrebiyas, abound. In a cold climate, such employment of the most easily worked of substances is natural enough; but in Egypt, apart from the scarcity of the material, and the necessity of importing it, the heat offers serious obstacles to its use. A plain board of wood properly seasoned may keep its shape well enough in England, but when exposed to the sun of Cairo it will speedily lose its accurate proportions; and when employed in combination with other pieces, to form windows or doors, boxes or pulpits, its joints will open, its carvings split, and the whole work will become unsightly and unstable. The leading characteristic of Cairo wood-work is its subdivision into numerous panels; and this principle is obviously the result of climatic considerations, rather than any doctrine of art. The only mode of combating the shrinking and warping effects of the sun was found in a skilful division of the surfaces into panels small enough, and sufficiently easy in their setting, to permit of slight shrinking without injury to the general outline. The little panels of a Cairo door or pulpit may expand without encountering enough resistance to cause any cracking or splitting in the surrounding portions, and the Egyptian workmen soon learned to accommodate themselves to the conditions of their art in a hot climate.”[31]