CHAPTER VIII.
LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.
THOUGH one of the most interesting countries of Europe with regard to architecture, Spain can lay claim to no style peculiar to itself, or that originated wholly within the Peninsula. It contains, however, noble specimens of art and architecture of very varied epochs and character, from the work of the unknown sculptors who carved the so-called "toros" of Guisando and erected the huge dolmens and other megalithic monuments so thickly strewed over its soil, to the architects and artists of the present day. Almost all the races which have trodden the land have left monuments upon it—the Carthaginians, perhaps, the fewest. Scarcely anywhere else does the solid, practical character of Roman architecture appear more fully than in the amphitheatres, aqueducts, and especially in the bridges of Spain. The amphitheatres, temples, and walls of Murviedro (Saguntum), Tarragona, Toledo, Coria, Plasencia; the aqueducts of Merida, Seville, and Segovia; the bridges of Tuy over the Minho, of Zamora over the Douro, Salamanca over the Tormes, of Alcantara, Garrovillas de Alconetar, and Puente del Arzobispo over the Tagus, of Merida and Medellin over the Guadiana, of Seville, Cordova, and Ubeda over the Guadalquiver, and of Lerida over the Segre, are noble relics of Roman work. Of the period when Roman art was gradually modified under Christian influences, and the basilica was transformed into the Christian church, very few remains exist. To the Vandal and Gothic conquerors belong part of the walls of Toledo, and a few chapels and small churches in the north and north-west may belong in part to this date (417-717); but the most peculiar artistic remains of this period are the jewellers' and goldsmiths' work, preserved in the metal crowns and treasure of Guarrazar (624-672), of a style which, though probably derived from the East through Byzantium, continued to influence Spanish goldsmiths' work down to the eleventh century.
The architecture and art of the race that succeeded to the Visigoths is of much more notable character. The civil and religious architecture of the Spanish Arabs is well worthy of most careful study, and is a grand example of the artistic talent of a race which, though debarred by its religious faith from the reproduction of human, or even of animal form, and delighting neither in the scenes of the theatre or the circus, has yet left masterpieces of architectural beauty in lands so wide apart as Spain, Egypt, Persia, and Hindostan. The architecture of the Arabs in Spain may be roughly divided into three periods: The first, from the eighth to the tenth century, tells most clearly of its origin as an imitation or modification of the Byzantine style; its masterpiece is the Mosque of Cordova. The second period, from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, shows the architects seeking their real style—it is a period of transition; its finest erection is the Giralda of Seville. The third period is when the Moorish style acquired its fullest development in the glorious Alhambra, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Contemporary with the last period is the Mudejar style, the modification which Arabic art underwent in the hands of the Christian conquerors. To this belong the Alcazar of Seville, 1353; the Mudejar gates of Toledo and Saragossa, and the Chapel of St. James in Alcala de Henares. In their domestic architecture the Arabs alone have almost solved the problem how to unite ventilation and ornament by means of currents of air of different temperatures. The pendulous stucco fretwork by which they conceal the angles of their apartments serves not only for ornament but to equalize the temperature and to admit of concealed openings whereby air can penetrate without draught or chill. The sense of true harmony of colour seems to be an intuitional gift of Oriental races, and is practically understood by them as it never has been by any other. The Mosaics of Greece and Rome, and those of mediæval Italy, in their storied designs, appeal more to the intellect; but those of Arabic art rest and charm the eye by the purity and harmonious blending of tone as do none other.
In spite of some apparent exceptions, and those of the earliest date, as the Mosque of Cordova (788), and the cloisters of Tayloon at Cairo (879), Arabic architecture, like Grecian, depended for its effect more on the exquisite symmetry and exact proportion of all details to a consummate whole, than to impressions of awe derived from vast size or immense solidity. It is thus that the massive Roman arch became moulded into the light horse-shoe shape, peculiar to the Spanish Arabs from the eighth to the tenth centuries. The originality of this architecture is not, however, so great as appears at first sight. The influence of Byzantine architecture and of that of the Christian churches with which the Arabs had become acquainted during their conquests, and of constant accessions from Oriental art, can be clearly traced therein. But in Spain there is perhaps a juster proportion, a greater variety and richness of ornamentation and colour than is to be found elsewhere. The grandest of Moorish buildings in Spain is undoubtedly one of the earliest, the great Mosque of Cordova, with its forest of 1200 columns, its fifty-seven naves, nineteen gates, and upwards of 4000 lamps, recalling the impression produced by the Egyptian hall of Karnac at Thebes,—an impression so vivid that even the iconoclast emperor, Charles V., whose own palace mars the beauty of the Alhambra, rebuked the Archbishop of Cordova for destroying what he never could replace, when he cut away some of the columns to make room for a Christian chapel. Not less beautiful in their graceful proportions than the Campanile of Italy are the minarets and towers of Arabian art in Spain, as the Giralda of Seville and others; even the quaintness of the leaning tower of Pisa finds its counterpart in the leaning tower of Saragossa. The Moorish gates of Toledo, of Seville, and the Alcazar of Segovia show how castellated strength may be wedded to artistic elegance; but the most perfect union at once of fortress and of palace is to be found in the noble group of buildings known as the Alhambra, on the hill of Granada. Though trembling on the verge of debasement when the severer forms of Arabian art were beginning to admit the representation of animal shapes, whose rude sculpture forms a contrast to the exquisite correctness of the alphabetic and geometrical designs which ornament the walls, these buildings may yet be regarded as marking the culmination of Moorish art. The fertility of decorative design, the exquisite use made of Arabic lettering, and the simple yet subtle forms of geometrical interlacing—apparently most fantastic, yet really ever subordinated to a just proportion with the whole—these are a theme of wondering admiration to every student. A whole grammar of ornament might be illustrated by examples taken from these buildings alone. The architecture of the houses of the Moorish aristocracy which still remain in Seville, Granada, Toledo, and Saragossa is wonderfully adapted both to the necessities of the climate and to domestic ornament. In the more northern examples the open galleries, in the more southern the flat roof, of the apartments surrounding the inner quadrangle make a delightful resort in the cool of the day; while the court or patio itself, with its fountains and shade, its flowers and creepers and odoriferous shrubs, its mingled play of light and colour, through which the delicate grace of ornament is seen uninjured by the dust and contact with the outside traffic, appears to the northern tourist almost like one of the fairy homes of which his ancestors dreamed, and which have been described to him in many a legend, as a thing too lovely to be gazed upon by mortal eyes unless unsealed.
The influence and the impress of Arabian art was not confined in Spain to mosques or to buildings consecrated to the use of Mohammedans alone. Some of the most beautiful specimens of this architecture were erected for Christians or for Jews. Arabic inscriptions used as ornaments are still to be seen on the altar of the Cathedral of Gerona, in the Shrine of San Isidore at Leon; Arabic architecture is seen in the palace of the archbishops of Toledo, in a chapel in Alcala de Henares, and in more than one synagogue of the Jews. Christian bishops used as episcopal seals rings on which were engraved the praises of Allah. Long after the conquest of the great cities of the centre and of the south, Moorish and Mudejar architects were retained in the pay of Christian monarchs to keep in repair the cathedrals and palaces, the beauty of whose architecture the Christians could appreciate but could not imitate, much less surpass. It is this fact, and the mingling of style and ideas consequent thereon, which gives its sole peculiar characteristic to Spanish art.
Meanwhile, contemporaneously with the flourishing period of Arabian art in the south, a Christian architecture, strikingly in contrast from its poverty of style and of invention, was slowly being reconstructed in the north. Of the eighth century we have the crypt of the Church of Santa Cruz, at Cangas in the Asturias, and some remains in parts of the churches of Oviedo. To the tenth century belong parts of the Church of San Pablo at Barcelona, and other Catalan churches, with here and there a chapel in the Western Pyrenees. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the more important churches of Northern Spain were almost reproductions of those of Southern France; the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella is almost a copy of the Church of St. Sernin at Toulouse; but the Romanesque (semi-Byzantine) style lingered somewhat longer in Spain than in the neighbouring country, and especially in North-eastern Spain. In the twelfth century edifices of real beauty are beginning to be built; such are the cloisters of Tarragona and the cathedrals of Lerida and of Tudela. The cathedrals of Avila and Siguenza are of more native Spanish character; while those of Toledo, Burgos, and Leon show the influence of French artists in their general plan, but with an added ornamentation derived from the richer and more florid fancy of the south. Of these perhaps Leon is the noblest and Burgos the richest example in Spain. Segovia, Salamanca, and Seville, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, are the latest of the great Gothic churches of Spain, before the rise of the Renaissance.
Nowhere had the classical revival in architecture more influence than in Spain. The almost exclusive type of church which, both in Spain and in her vast colonies, is pointed out as the Spanish church, is that either of the Renaissance or of the styles which have sprung from it. This soon became fashionable, but its semi-pagan additions frequently harmonize but ill with the deeper religious feeling of the preceding styles. Still it has many fine examples; the works of Berruguete and Herrera are well worthy of study. The Escorial, the work of the latter, is redeemed from ugliness or meanness by the noble proportions of its central chapel and pantheon. But to this semi-classical style succeeded, in the eighteenth century, the Churrigueresque, the most debased of all styles, wherein plaster took the place of sculpture, sham that of reality, and masses of gilding and an incongruous medley of meaningless ornament concealed the blunders in proportion and poverty of idea. The adoption of this style by the Jesuits procured its prevalence in many districts of Spain and of her colonies; occasionally the size of the buildings constructed gives a certain grandeur and hides the debasement of the methods.
The domestic, palatial, and castellated architecture of Spain has little peculiar beyond what has been already indicated. The royal palace at Madrid, however, is one of the most successful architectural efforts of the eighteenth century. The sculptured coats of arms on mean dwellings are perhaps the most notable distinction of Spanish houses. Traces of the influence of Moorish traditions may not unfrequently be observed. In the north, the cottages and farms of the Basques, with overhanging roofs and wooden galleries, recall in some degree those of Switzerland; in the south the iron bars or rails (rejas) before the lower windows, and the lattices (celosias) in the upper stories tell of insecurity and of habits of almost Oriental seclusion of women.