Wanderings in Spain

by Théophile Gautier

In order to proceed to the Escurial, we hired one of those fantastic vehicles, of which we have already had occasion to speak, covered with grey cupids and other ornaments in the Pompadour style, dragged by four mules, and enhanced by the presence of a zagal in a tolerable masquerading suit. The Escurial is situated about seven or eight leagues from Madrid, not far from Guadarrama, at the foot of a chain of mountains. It is impossible to imagine anything more arid and desolate than the country you have to pass through in order to reach it. There is not a single tree, not a single house; nothing but a succession of steep declivities and dry ravines, which the presence of several bridges points out as the beds of different torrents, and here and there a long vista of blue mountains capped with snow or clouds. Such as it is, however, the view is not without a certain kind of grandeur; the absence of all vegetation gives an extraordinary degree of boldness and severity to the outline of the ground. In proportion as you proceed further from Madrid, the stones with which the way is thickly strewed become larger, and evince, more and more, an ambitious feeling of being taken for rocks. They are of a bluish grey, and appear, as they are scattered over the scale-like soil, like so many warts upon the wrinkled back of a centenarian crocodile; they form a thousand strange shapes upon the outline of the hills, which resemble the ruins of gigantic edifices.

Halfway on the road, at the summit of a pretty steep ascent, is a poor isolated house, the only one you meet in the course of eight leagues. Opposite it is a spring, from which a pure and icy stream trickles down, drop by drop; you drink as many glasses of water as the spring contains, let your mules rest a short time, and then set off again on your journey. Soon afterwards you perceive, standing out from the vapoury background of the mountains, and rendered visible by a bright gleam of sunshine, that Leviathan of architecture, the Escurial. At a distance, the effect is very fine; you would almost fancy it to be an immense Oriental palace, the stone cupola and the balls which terminate all the elevated points contributing very much to keep up the illusion. Before reaching it, you pass through a large wood of olive-trees, ornamented with crosses, quaintly planted on large blocks of rocks, and producing the most picturesque effect. On issuing from the wood you enter the village and find yourself before the colossus, which loses a great deal from being viewed closely, like all the other colossi in the world. The first thing that struck me was the great number of swallows and martins, wheeling about in immense swarms, and uttering a sharp, strident cry. The poor little birds appeared terrified by the death-like silence which reigned in this Thebaid, and were endeavouring to impart a little animation and noise to it.

Every one is aware that the Escurial was built in consequence of a vow made by Philip II. at the siege of Saint Quentin, when he was obliged to cannonade a church dedicated to St. Lawrence. Philip promised the Saint that he would make amends for the church of which he deprived him, by one that should be more spacious and more beautiful; and he kept his word more faithfully than the kings of this earth generally do. The Escurial, which was commenced by Juan Bautista and completed by Herrera, is assuredly, with the exception of the Egyptian pyramids, the largest heap of granite that exists upon the face of the globe; it is called, in Spain, the eighth wonder of the world, making, as each country has its own eighth wonder, at least the thirtieth eighth wonder now existing.

I am exceedingly embarrassed in giving an opinion on the Escurial. So many grave and respectable persons, who, I am happy to believe, never saw it, have spoken of it as a chef-d'œuvre and a supreme effort of human genius, that I, who am but a poor, miserable, wandering writer of feuilletons, am afraid that I shall appear to have determined to be original, and seem to take pleasure in contradicting the generally-received opinion. Despite of this, however, I declare conscientiously, and from the bottom of my heart, that I cannot help thinking the Escurial the dullest and most wearisome edifice that a morose monk and a suspicious tyrant could ever conceive for the mortification of their fellow-creatures. I am very well aware that the Escurial was erected for an austere and religious purpose, but gravity does not consist in baldness, melancholy in atrophy, or meditation in ennui; beauty of form can always be united to elevation of ideas.

The Escurial is arranged in the form of a gridiron, in honour of Saint Lawrence. Four towers, or square pavilions, represent the feet of this instrument of torture; four masses of building connect the pavilions with each other, and form the framework, while other cross rows represent the bars; the palace and the church are situated in the handle. This strange notion, which must have hampered the architect very much, is not easily perceived by the eye, although it is very visible upon the printed plan. If the visitor were not told of it, he most certainly would never discover it. I do not blame this symbolical piece of puerility, which suited the taste of the times; for I am convinced that when a certain model is given to an architect, so far from shackling him, it will, provided he has genius, prove of great use and assistance to him, and cause him to have recourse to expedients of which he would, otherwise, never have thought; but it strikes me that, in this case, he might have arrived at a far different result. Those persons who are fond of good taste and sobriety in architecture, must think the Escurial a specimen of perfection, for the only line employed in it is the straight line, and the only order the Doric order, which is the most melancholy and poorest of any.

THE ESCURIAL.

One thing which immediately strikes you very disagreeably, is the yellow clayish colour of the walls, which you would almost imagine to be built of mud, did not the joints of the stones, marked by lines of glaring white, prove that this was not the case. Nothing can be more monotonous to behold than all these buildings, six or seven stories high, without a moulding, a pilaster, or a column, and with their small low windows, looking like the entrance to a beehive. The place is the very ideal of an hospital, or of barracks: its sole merit consists in its being built of granite, a species of merit which is of no value, since at the distance of a hundred paces the granite may be easily mistaken for the clay of which stoves are made in France. On the top is a heavy dwarfish cupola, which I can compare to nothing more aptly than the dome of the Val de Grâce, and which boasts of no other ornaments than a multitude of granite balls. All around, in order that nothing may be wanting to the symmetry of the whole, are a number of buildings in the same style, that is to say, with a quantity of small windows, and without the least ornament. These buildings are connected with each other by galleries in the form of bridges, thrown over the streets that lead to the village, which, at present, is nothing more than a heap of ruins. All the approaches to the edifice are paved with granite flags, and its limits marked by little walls three feet high, ornamented with the inevitable balls at every angle and every opening. The façade, which does not project in the least from the other portions of the building, fails to break the aridity of the general lines, and is hardly perceived, although it is of gigantic proportions.