With this great people the love of scientific investigation was an absorbing passion. It pervaded every department of government, every occupation of life, every branch of study; it even invaded the sanctuaries of religion. The cultivation of letters, the prosecution of experiments, were, for eight centuries, the most prominent characteristics of the Arab race, the highest distinction of Mussulman sovereigns. It is far from creditable to modern civilization, indebted for its existence to these pursuits, to ignore such claims to gratitude and renown, through prejudice against the religious principles of those who engaged in them. Surely in all literature there exists no nobler or more elevated sentiment than that expressed in the saying of Mohammed, “A mind without culture is like a body without a soul, and glory does not consist in riches, but in knowledge.”
CHAPTER XXIX
MOORISH ART IN SOUTHERN EUROPE
786–1476
Absolute Ignorance of Art among the Original Arabs—Their Debt to Antiquity—Their Early Architecture—Materials—Massive Character of the First Edifices of the Moslems—The Horseshoe Arch—Its Phallic Derivation—Progress of Artistic Embellishment—Its Wonderful Diversity—Byzantine Influence—Employment of Encaustic Tiles—Mosaics of the Mosque of Cordova—Stuccoes—Their Composition and Infinite Variety of Form—Stalactitic Pendentives—Woodwork—Its Beautiful and Intricate Designs—Disappearance of Arabic Architectural Monuments in Sicily—Military Structures of Mohammedan Spain—Typical Form of the Mosque—Its Hebrew Origin—Manifold Derivation of Hispano-Arab Architecture—Development of Art in Moorish Spain—Its Three Epochs—The Alhambra its Culmination—Representation of Animal Forms—Painting and Sculpture—Mural Decoration—The Industrial Arts—Working of Metals—Arms—Engraved Gems—Ceramics—The Leathern Tapestry of Cordova—Textile Fabrics—Calligraphy and Illumination—Destruction of the Artistic Remains of the Moors.
The origin, development, and decadence of the arts among the Arabs present one of the most remarkable aspects of mediæval history. As in the architectural monuments of every people can be read the chronicle of its religion, its government, and its manners, so the scanty memorials of the Spanish and Sicilian Moslems, which the destructive accidents of foreign and domestic violence and the intemperate zeal of superstition have permitted to descend to posterity, constitute an invaluable record of the canons of their faith, the customs of their social and intellectual life, the growth and consolidation of their wonderful empire. From the remotest antiquity to the advent of Mohammed in the seventh century nothing worthy of the name of architecture existed in the Arabian Peninsula. The very name of that art, which implies a settled and permanent habitation, was antagonistic to the habits and the traditions of a nomadic existence. As a rule, the nature of the country, the character of the soil, the scarcity of water, the difficulties of intercommunication, were insuperable obstacles to the foundation of cities and the promotion of mercantile and manufacturing industry. The roving Bedouin regarded with aversion and contempt all those whose avocations necessitated a fixed residence, and whose security was dependent upon walls and towers. His jealousy of power, which based the authority of his sheik upon a nominal allegiance, to be thrown off or resumed at will, was repugnant to and wholly inconsistent with the principles which insure the preservation of established government or the maintenance of regular communities organized for the common protection and benefit. It is true that in the kingdoms of Hira and Yemen, which formed respectively the northern and southern extremities of Arabia, towns of considerable magnitude existed. Mecca, the revered centre of a widely diffused idolatrous system, could boast a numerous population; and the commerce of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf sustained upon those waters a few insignificant and miserable seaports; but in none of these settlements—which scarcely deserved the name of cities—was to be found a single example of architectural symmetry or magnificence. Everywhere else throughout the illimitable area of the Peninsula appeared a monotonous solitude of barren rocks and shifting sands, unrelieved by vegetation, unpeopled by human beings, save the ferocious occupants of the Bedouin camp or the traders who guarded the straggling caravan. Agriculture, the substantial basis of every nation’s prosperity, was manifestly impossible in the Desert. Mechanical ingenuity, with such a limited field for its exercise, was necessarily reduced to the simplest apparatus which could produce the most ordinary and primitive results.
At long and irregular intervals merchants and pilgrims brought to Mecca and Medina uncertain and romantic accounts of the pomp and luxury of distant empires. Compared with the edifices of the nations which inhabited them, the dwelling of the wealthiest Arabian—of mean appearance, suggestive of little comfort, utterly devoid of taste, and with no attempt at ornamentation—was hardly superior to a hovel. The famous Kaaba was itself an insignificant structure, deriving its importance solely from its sacred traditions, a mere barbarian depository of idols.
As was natural, and, indeed, inevitable, the Arab, in his career of victory, absorbed and insensibly appropriated the ideas and knowledge of the subjugated races who were his superiors in the arts of civilization. This process was greatly facilitated by the wholesale proselytism which was one of the principal incidents of Moslem conquest, and which led not infrequently to the practical apostasy of entire nations and their enlistment under the banners of Islam. In Egypt, Syria, Persia, the architectural memorials of the Arabs partook of the characteristics of the race whose influence predominated in the regions subjected to their authority, just as had been the case with all the victorious nations that had preceded them. In Spain, however, and also in Sicily, so far as we are able to conjecture, a greater originality distinguished the works of the conquerors than is to be observed in other countries. No well-defined connection with Oriental architecture can be detected in the splendid vestiges of taste and elegance which have survived their dominion nearly five hundred years. In the land illuminated by his genius and enriched by his industry, the Spanish Moslem is forgotten or absolutely unknown to the majority of the people; his memory is execrated as that of an infidel; his works are denounced as barbaric; the effects and the influence of his civilization are disputed or depreciated; his temples have been mutilated or entirely destroyed; his palaces transformed into the squalid haunts of mendicity and vice; while the leather-clad shepherd watches his flock on the once famous site of gardens adorned with magnificent villas and beautiful with all the luxuriant and fanciful horticulture of the East.
The Hispano-Arab age of architecture embraces a period of six hundred and ninety years from the foundation of the Mosque of Cordova in the eighth century to the completion of the Alhambra in the fifteenth. In that time it passed through many phases, whose peculiarities are clearly indicated by its surviving monuments, but whose order of progression is imperfect and whose limits are not accurately defined. Although the great temple of Islam, raised by Abd-al-Rahman, was largely composed of materials taken from the remains of classic antiquity, Arabic architecture borrowed nothing in design from the stupendous Roman ruins of the Peninsula. Admiration of their proportions and beauty had awakened a desire, not so much to imitate them, as to create something with which they might worthily be compared; edifices which would correspond with the tastes and necessities of an impetuous, highly organized, and passionate race, immoderately fond of variety and adornment, easily intoxicated with religious enthusiasm, devoted to the arts and whims of riotous sensuality. The gigantic mass of the pyramid, the elaborately sculptured façade of the Persian palace, the elegant forms of the Grecian temple and the Roman triumphal arch, might excite the awe of the Arab; but they appealed but slightly to his ardent sensibilities, and to his enthusiastic nature which wantoned in the creation of a thousand extravagant and fantastic visions. Ideas evoked by the masterpieces of antiquity, however, opened a new and alluring prospect to his talents and his ambition, and he soon became as proficient in the most durable of the arts of peace as he had been in the prosecution of conquest and the extension of dominion.
No people ever utilized to such an extent as the Arabs the materials perfected by the skill and the labor of their predecessors; and, it may be added, none in ancient or in modern times enjoyed such opportunities for, and reaped such benefits from, the ignoble work of spoliation. From the Bay of Biscay to the Himalayas, sumptuous palaces and temples were constructed by the Moslem conqueror from the splendid relics of Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Sassanian, and Indian civilization. Great capitals rose near the sites of cities whose origin was lost in antiquity, whose history went back to the beginning of the world. These works, while they displayed rather the consciousness of power than the evidences of taste, were eminently useful in laying the foundation of new forms of architecture, whose decorations were to exhibit forms of unparalleled magnificence and beauty. The plans of these structures were at first of the simplest character, their ornamentation coarse and barbaric. It was only when the supply of materials, great as it was, became exhausted, and the Arab architect was restricted to the efforts of his own unaided genius, that was developed that peculiar style, which, differing in its arrangement in every country, yet preserved a general resemblance in all, a type suggestive of the poetic rhapsodies of the Koran and the exigencies of a system of domestic seclusion and mystery; whose luxury recalled, by contrast, the heat and privations of the Desert; whose legends breathed a spirit of pious resignation and gratitude; whose adornments bewildered the eye with their complexity of form and variety of color; whose apartments were admirably contrived for the gratification of all the caprices of unbridled indulgence. The intimate connections and common belief of the different portions of the great Moslem empire disseminated far and wide the various stores of learning and experience acquired by each; the principles of every branch of art became more thoroughly understood, and their application facilitated and promoted through the encouragement afforded by increasing wealth and royal liberality. The early predilection displayed by the Arab student for the exact sciences contributed largely to the development and perfection of architectural excellence.
At first, the art of building had been merely constructive, without embellishment, merit, or originality; the materials, the plunder of antiquity; the style, a feeble and debased imitation of the simplest parts of those noble piles which had been the admiration and the glory of the ancient world. Familiarity with these models, acquaintance with the principles of mathematical science, a spirit of emulation excited by the hope of substantial reward, erelong produced a race of builders whose creations denote a new and splendid epoch in the history of architecture. As in the beginning, no conditions could have been more unfavorable to the development of this art; in the end, on the contrary, no people ever attained to greater distinction in the graceful outlines, the exquisite beauty, the elaborate decoration of their edifices. The importance of these results is manifest from the circumstance that they were ordinarily achieved by the use of the most homely materials and by the application of the simplest rules of geometry.
The Arabs of Africa and Spain usually employed in their more massive constructions a conglomerate material composed of lime, clay, and pebbles, called “tabbi” or “tapia,” which was well known to the Romans and is mentioned by Pliny. This mixture, which formed the body of the edifice and in time acquired an extraordinary solidity and hardness, was often faced with dressed stone or a coating of cement, which united compactly with the central mass, and whose excellent quality is attested by specimens of masonry that have existed, practically intact, for the long period of eleven centuries. In some instances, large bricks, often deeply grooved to admit the mortar, were used instead of tapia; in others, the entire wall was composed of hewn stone; the Mosque of Cordova presents examples of all three of these methods of construction. Where the clay of the material contained oxide of iron, which was sometimes the case, it imparted to the building a delicate tint, like that of the petals of a rose, as in the Alhambra, which derived its name from the color of its walls.