On the two principal structures of Moorish Spain devoted to the service of religion, the use of enamelled tiles as an element of external decoration, an art whose latest adaptations were also peculiar to the Arab and which was subsequently carried to such a degree of perfection, is first to be remarked. The Mosque affords but a few coarse and ill-arranged specimens; those of the Giralda are of far superior material and finish, and from the comparatively small number remaining we can form some idea of the appearance of this magnificent tower when, intact, its summit was girdled with these brilliant ornaments, whose polished surfaces flashed like jewels in the Andalusian sunlight.
The improvement in the manufacture and disposition of encaustic tiles is an index of the progress of the Spanish Moslems in the mechanical arts, as well as in the application of the principles of architectural ornamentation. During the final period of their dominion in the Peninsula, the use of tilework was practically confined to interiors, and it was in the Alhambra that it attained its highest development. In the bewildering complexity of patterns, in the accuracy with which their minute pieces are united, in the variety of colors, and in the exquisite taste with which they are combined, the mosaics of that palace are absolutely unapproachable by any similar work which has ever been produced by human skill. Their surfaces have all the brilliancy and polish of the finest porcelain. The edges of fragments which have been detached show marks of the file, evidence of the painstaking and conscientious labors of the Moorish artisan. These enamels are remarkable not only for their elegance, but for the radical difference which they present to the mosaics employed during the existence of the Khalifate of Cordova. The latter were not ceramic, but were prepared by laying the colors upon the wall, and then covering them with minute cubes of glass embedded in a transparent cement.
The Mihrab of the Great Mosque shows what results can be accomplished by this simple process. In its rich panels, arches, and cupolas, in the belts of inscriptions glowing with a score of brilliant hues, in the graceful interlacing arabesques, the crystal mosaics, in themselves imperishable, shine with undiminished lustre after a lapse of more than nine hundred years. The most celebrated productions of this description extant in the churches and mosques of Constantinople and in the cathedrals of Venice and Ravenna bear no comparison, save in the character of the materials employed, to those which adorn the sanctuary of the famous Moslem temple. The designs were undoubtedly traced by Arab artists, whose versatility is disclosed by their extraordinary proficiency in an art with which they must have been hitherto unfamiliar, and in whose successful manipulation they surpassed the masterpieces of Byzantine genius. No explanation has been given to account for the sudden disuse of a method of architectural embellishment at its culmination, in an example which has called forth the praise of thirty generations; but it is a well-established fact that, after the destruction of the khalifate in the tenth century, the employment of Byzantine mosaics, the most exquisite of the ornamental processes known to the Spanish Arabs, disappeared forever from the Peninsula. It may have been that its exotic derivation was to some extent responsible for its sudden and absolute extinction. The soseifesa, from the Greek ψήφοσις, “made of little stones,” as this mosaic was known to the Moors, was a distinctive product of Byzantine ingenuity. The material destined for the Mosque, as well as the workmen skilled in its use, were sent to the Khalif Al-Hakem II. by the Greek Emperor of Constantinople; and it was from these foreigners that the Moors learned the leading principles of an art which, long practised on the shores of the Bosphorus, had now become familiar to many cities of the Mediterranean coast. The jealous pride of the Arab—who was not averse to borrowing architectural ideas from different nations that were his masters in the science of construction, and many of which bowed under his yoke as tributaries—revolted perhaps at the open appropriation of an entire system from an enemy of his religion, and especially at the confession of intellectual inferiority that such an act might imply.
In the perfection of enamelled mosaics, however, his originality was undisputed; his artistic conceptions were untrammelled; and the proofs of his creative genius are written upon walls and columns which have excited the admiring wonder of architectural critics from countries unknown to both Europe and Asia at the date of their completion. The dadoes of the Alhambra, its pavement and its roofs, before systematic neglect and vandalism had accomplished their destructive work, undoubtedly presented a spectacle of unique and dazzling splendor. The total disappearance of at least one-third of the palace, and the shameless mutilation of the rest, have unfortunately deprived the architect of standards of comparison at different epochs, by which the various steps in the progressive development of the application of encaustic tiles might be definitely traced.
The most distinguishing characteristic of Arabic mural ornamentation, however, is the stucco work, which seems to have been of contemporaneous origin with the earliest monuments of the khalifate. Such was its prodigious improvement that specimens of the rude tracery executed in the eighth century on the walls of the Djalma of Cordova, and the delicate, lace-like effects produced in the fourteenth by the builders of the Alhambra, bear to each other scarcely a single point of resemblance. The secret of the composition of this material, which in time became as hard and durable as stone, is lost. It is supposed to have been made of pulverized marble, lime, and gypsum, mixed in certain proportions with the whites of eggs, and then, while in an almost fluid condition, run into moulds. It contained some substance noxious to all insects, for neither flies nor spiders are ever noticed on the walls of the Moorish palace. This singular property, which has contributed as much as any other cause to the preservation of this precious monument of Arab art, has been attributed by popular tradition to the presence of garlic in the mortar; but the odor of that plant, however pungent, must certainly have been dissipated in the course of years; and no substance known to modern chemistry will, if exposed to atmospheric influences, retain for centuries its qualities unimpaired. The moulding of the stucco ornaments facilitated their reproduction, and the multiplication of an infinite variety of designs. Of the latter, Contreras counted one hundred and fifty-two, all different, in a single apartment, the Hall of Comares in the Alhambra. Their effect was that of the richest embroidered tapestry, an illusion heightened by the hangings of embossed and painted leather often suspended beneath them. The peculiar textile resemblance of Arab mural decoration owed its origin to the drapery of the tent, and is a reminiscence of the nomadic life of the Desert.
In the presence of this gorgeous embroidery in stone, now resembling tissues of silken and gold brocade, and again assuming the delicate texture of lace, whose filmy and transparent meshes almost seem to move with every passing breeze, all appearance of solidity is lost. This pleasing artistic deception extends even to the construction of the arches, which appear to sustain the weights resting upon their curves by the influence of some mysterious principle unknown to the laws of mechanics. The explanation of the apparent phenomenon, however, disclosed a method as simple as it is ingenious. Upon the capitals were placed light but strong wooden beams, which, covered with plaster, were lost in the maze of ornament, while they formed the real support of the arcades whose substantial character is demonstrated by their successful resistance to the violence of the elements and the vandalism of man through many centuries. The interiors of the apartments of public institutions and royal habitations were covered with this kind of ornament disposed in high relief, and in which the stalactitic or pendentive vault—original with the Moorish architect—constituted a most attractive and prominent feature.
It would be impossible to enumerate the wonderful variety of forms which this plastic material was made to assume under the skilful manipulation of the artist. Diminutive colonnades, surmounted by delicate engrailed arches, medallions, festoons and wreaths, the armorial bearings and mottoes of the Alhamares, Arabic texts and legends which can be read from right or left with equal facility, and geometrical designs, whose elements are susceptible of an infinite number of changes and combinations, are the salient points which strike the eye and appeal to the imagination in those palatial halls which in their original condition must have exhibited a magnificence which baffled all description.
The stalactitic patterns, in whose elegant arrangement and marvellous diversity the constructive genius of the Moor especially delighted, were applied, not only to the cupolas, but in the angles along the frieze and upon the plane surface of the walls. The domes of the principal chambers of the Alhambra are entirely composed of these pendentives, whose pieces, in the most elaborate of their examples of artistic taste, number many thousand. The tenacity and strength of the material was vastly increased by the use of twigs and rushes buried in the fresh and yielding mortar, which was fastened to a wooden framework by nails plated with tin, which even now, when exposed to the air, show no evidence of corrosion.
With the exception of the columns, so conspicuous a peculiarity of Arabic construction, marble was sparingly used, although the quarries of Spain had been renowned from the highest antiquity for the quantity and excellence of their products. While a difference of opinion prevails among antiquaries upon this point, it is reasonably certain that the columns supporting the arcades of the Alhambra were originally gilded. In the Hall of Justice some of them are encased in mosaic, which produces an unique, if not a pleasing, effect.
Of equal originality and magnificence were the ceilings and the doors of the grand Moorish edifices. The art of marquetry offered to the Arab workman a field in which his characteristic love of detail and intricate combinations, aided by his unflagging industry, found full expression. In the buildings of the khalifate, the ceilings, instead of being either flat or vaulted, usually conformed in number and inclination to the roofs, which in the Mosque were nineteen, one for every nave. The rafters, carved upon three sides, enclosed spaces forming a regular series of panels painted with brilliant colors, and whose mouldings and other elevated portions were covered with gold. The woodwork was not infrequently inlaid with rare and precious substances, such as ebony and ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, lazulite, and various gems. In the later periods of the Moslem domination, the same materials were used, but more correct ideas of architectural construction governed their disposition. The primitive angular ceilings were supplanted by the hemispherical dome, whose surface, covered with superb geometrical tracery, blazing with vermilion, blue, and gold, displayed, in all its perfection, the utmost skill of the Moorish artisan. The doors and the lattices of the harem corresponded in style and workmanship with the ornamented interiors of the buildings, and it was not unusual for a single lattice which screened an opening but a few feet square to contain fifteen hundred pieces, combined in many complex and graceful geometrical patterns. The mimbar and the lectern of the Mosque of Cordova, already described in these pages, whose odoriferous and precious woodwork was fastened together with golden nails and enriched with jewels,—long the pride of the faithful and now the subject of the fruitless speculations of the historian,—were also examples of Arab marquetry produced in the very infancy of that art. The perfection subsequently attained in the carving of hard woods, which were often inlaid with arabesques in gold, silver, and copper, has never been surpassed.