An Architect's Note-Book in Spain Part 16

"Lonely and still are now thy marble halls, Thou fair Alhambra! there the feast is o'er; And with the murmur of thy fountain falls,[39]

Blend the wild tones of minstrelsy no more.

Hushed are the voices, that in years gone by, Have mourn'd, exulted, menaced, through thy towers, Within thy pillar'd courts the gra.s.s waves high, And all uncultured bloom thy fairy bowers.

Unheeded there the flowering myrtle blows, Through tall arcades unmark'd the sunbeam smiles, And many a tint of soften'd brilliance throws O'er fretted walls and s.h.i.+ning peristyles."[40]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 70

GRANADA.

THE ALHAMBRA FROM THE HALL OF THE AMBa.s.sADORS.

IN STUCCO FULL SIZE.

MDW 1869]

PLATE LXX.

_GRANADA.--THE ALHAMBRA._

STUCCO DETAIL FROM THE HALL OF THE AMBa.s.sADORS.

IN describing the subject of the last sketch, our theme was the general aspect of the "Sala de los Embajadores." I have chosen to let this minute specimen of its detail follow the statement of its large dimensions, in order the more forcibly to convey an idea of its wonderful elaboration. The elegant morsel of stucco-work now presented to the student has been actually traced from a portion of the stucco-work of one of the window recesses immediately above the dado. It affords an admirable ill.u.s.tration of two principles constantly followed by the Moors in their treatment of decoration--viz., to preserve the continuity of all scroll work from root to fully developed foliation--a principle entirely disregarded in all previous ornamentation based upon cla.s.sical practice--and to care first for larger surfaces to satisfy the eye with harmonious relations of those surfaces to one another, and to the s.p.a.ces they have to enrich, from a distance; and then to provide minor fillings and intersections so as to supply adequate elaboration for close inspection. In addition to the decorative effect produced by variations in relief, still greater refinement was obtained by patterns in colour, painted upon the surfaces of the modelled ornaments. Although almost everywhere the colour has either been rubbed off, or rubbed into confusion, the abrasion has affected for the most part only the pigment and its alb.u.minous vehicle, leaving the surface of the stucco bare, and showing the outline of the delicate ornament which has been drawn in by the pencil of the artist.

It is on the nature of the stucco itself I think it may be well to offer here a few remarks. It certainly appears to be harder, closer in texture, tougher, and much less absorbent, than gypsum or plaster of Paris, when set in the usual manner. Lime alone, as ordinarily slacked, would not I believe give any such texture, even if it could be manipulated into similar ornamental forms. I believe the Moorish Stucco to be almost if not quite identical with the Indian "Chunam," and that in its turn to be a substance produced much in the same way that the fine Stucco of the Romans was ordinarily wrought by that people. In the native treatment of all of these substances, I believe four peculiarities to have been generally used. Firstly--to employ the finest lime only. Secondly--to mix it with pounded earthen-ware. Thirdly--to beat it thoroughly. Fourthly--to use saccharine substances to r.e.t.a.r.d the setting and keep the ma.s.s plastic under the tool.

The present is scarcely a fitting occasion upon which to state in any detail the grounds upon which I have been led to this conclusion, but I have little doubt that any student will be struck by the ident.i.ty of practice of Roman, Indian, and Moor, who will refer to the practical descriptions of the various modes of the formation of terraces given by Vitruvius, by Captain Phipps, in "The Barrackmaster's a.s.sistant,"[41]

and by John Windus, in his "Journey to Mequinez."[42]

I have elsewhere noticed the command the descendants of the Moors seemed to retain over all operations of plaster and lime work throughout Spain, as evidenced by the beauty and elaboration of the Mudejar style in those materials, long after they ceased to be the dominant race in the localities in which they continued to practice their old technical arts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 71

GRANADA.

THE ALHAMBRA. FROM THE HALL OF THE AMBa.s.sADORS.

BLACK ON WHITE.

FULL SIZE GLa.s.s INLAY.

MDW 1869]

PLATE LXXI.

_GRANADA.--THE ALHAMBRA._

DETAIL OF GLa.s.s INLAY FROM THE HALL OF THE AMBa.s.sADORS.

THIS little pattern which forms the centre, or eye--the point of departure in fact--of an elaborate geometrical mosaic has been most carefully traced and copied from the original, which yet remains in the centre of the dado on the side of the window on the right of the Sultan's throne in the Hall of the Amba.s.sadors. It may thus be said to occupy an especial post of honour and so to challenge, as it were, curiosity and admiration. Both these a close inspection thoroughly justifies, since in all the history of the manufacture of vitrified substances I know nothing more curious and puzzling. The pattern is in bluish-black on a white ground; and both ground and inlay are made apparently in two separate pieces of gla.s.s, and in two only. The most minute inspection shows no joint whatever on the surface of either coloured material; at the same time it establishes the fact that the ground has been made with the whole pattern sunk "en creux," and that the inlay has been made in one piece--practically a specimen of gla.s.s lace--and fixed into the cavity of the ground with a very fine calcareous cement, made probably of lime and white of egg. To inlay gla.s.s in gla.s.s involves little difficulty, if ground and inlay are as it were fused together; but to produce a ground apparently in gla.s.s, and to inlay it with so fine a pattern, both "au froid," is a perfect marvel in vitreous manufacture.

The only way in which I can imagine that such an effect could be produced is as follows, but in offering any such explanation I desire to do so with all due deference to practical gla.s.s-workers. I believe that two metal-moulds were made, one with the ornament in relief, and the other with the same ornament sunk in intaglio. From each mould, gla.s.s reproductions having been made of about equal substances (so as to contract equally in cooling), and, with the exception of a black film in one case, of the same gla.s.s, the two reproductions were stuck together firmly by the calcareous cement. The black gla.s.s in "cameo" would then be encased within the white gla.s.s in "intaglio;" and the pattern would of course be invisible, the two reproductions being firmly stuck together face to face, making apparently one white gla.s.s tessera of double the requisite thickness. The back of the cameo side would then have to be ground away, probably at a lapidary's wheel, until the back of the black pattern in cameo should be reached. At the same moment the face of the white intaglio would be exposed; and the tessera, being reduced to its proper thickness for insertion with the rest of the adjoining gla.s.s mosaic, would be fit to permanently combine with it; showing an elaborate black pattern held in by calcareous cement, on a white face, exactly as it now appears.

Any such resolution of a difficult technical problem exhibits the Moors to us as excelling in two of their favourite Arts, viz., inlaying and gla.s.s manufacture.

For much of their knowledge of both of these arts there is no doubt that the Moors were indebted to the Arabians. The Arabians were in their turn inheritors from the Byzantine Greeks of many of the traditions of manufacturing excellence once practised by the Romans. Amongst these were, no doubt, almost every process of gla.s.s-working and mosaic.[43]

Considerable doubts exist as to the inheritance by the Greek of the lower empire of the process of inlaying from the Romans, and to their originality in adapting the process to their architecture. The first building in which it appears to have been freely used by the Greeks was the Mosque of Santa Sofia, built by Justinian. For that building he is known to have invoked the a.s.sistance of Persian designers and artificers; and from the divergence in the patterns of those inlays from any patterns usual in Roman contemporary work, I am inclined to believe that they represent the foreign element to which I have alluded. A most interesting comparison may be made, by the student, of the patterns from the Aya Sofia given in Salzenburg's great work, with those of the princ.i.p.al of the Cairene Mosques drawn by Mr. James Wild and given in the "Grammar of Ornament."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 72

GRANADA

THE ALHAMBRA

HALL OF THE AMBa.s.sADORS

MOSAIC FULL SIZE

MDW 1869]

PLATE LXXII.

_GRANADA.--THE ALHAMBRA._

MOSAIC FROM THE HALL OF THE AMBa.s.sADORS.

IN the description of the last sketch I alluded to the sources whence the Moors derived much of their knowledge of gla.s.s-making and mosaic-working. In the specimen now given, the full size of the original, on the opposite page, a considerable advance is shown upon what was usual in the contemporary, "Opus Grecanic.u.m," as executed, either in Italy or in Greece itself. The advance is princ.i.p.ally to be seen in this particular, that whereas in the last mentioned work, every complicated pattern is made up out of tesserae, or gla.s.s strips cut into squares, oblongs, triangles, or other simple figures; in the Moorish work, arbitrary shapes of considerable geometrical complexity are given to each separate piece of mosaic. When these tesserae, so shaped, are brought together, their combination immediately results in the formation of perfect patterns, such as the one now ill.u.s.trated. Tesserae of this description were no doubt formed by squeezing plastic clay into metal moulds, and almost perfect ident.i.ty was obtained between the tesserae obtained from the same mould. These, after firing, were then apparently covered with coloured vitreous glazes by a subsequent operation.

In ill.u.s.tration of the advantages possessed by the Moors over the Greeks, in working such mosaics as the one I have sketched, it may be noted, that while a Greek would have required one hundred and nineteen separate pieces to make up what is shown, the Moor wanted only forty-nine. Moreover, instead of having to chip every one of the one hundred and nineteen pieces to a definite size and shape, and then to place them slowly so as to ensure the truth of his angles of forty-five and twenty-two and a half degrees, as the Greek or Italian had, the Moor had only to place one of his forty-nine pieces with precision; and, provided he never took any of the eleven patterns, of which his repeats are composed, out of their right turn, his mosaic would work itself with scarcely any other attention on his part. Another source of anxiety was saved to him; viz., constant heedfulness as to the working of the interlacement of his lines--_i. e._, their running, as it were, under and over one another. The result, in this particular, is far clearer and more effective in the Moorish, than according to the Greco-Italian method; since, while in the former there are no joints which do not help to define an interlacement, according to the latter, the joints occurring on the line of mitre of every angle become confused with the joints which express interlacement. A comparison of the Sicilian, with the Alhambrese, geometrical mosaics, would show in a moment the superiority of the last mentioned method.

No people, except perhaps the Chinese, have ever equalled the Moors in devising patterns of most complicated appearance, in which colours were, as it were, counterchanged by combining tiles, or tesserae, of similar geometrical forms, but made in different tints or tones.

Beautiful examples are given in profusion in the works of Mr. Owen Jones, M. Girault de Prangey, Herr Hessemer, M. Coste and many others.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 73

THE ALHAMBRA