ing back of the decadent Moors from the earthly paradise they had made, was begun by the new crusaders, and in their wake came French bishops, monks, priests to organize the recovered lands in Christian fashion. Professor Porter has shown in his amazing book on XIIth century sculpture, just published (perhaps the most scholarly and erudite work yet produced in America), the immense part played by these pilgrimage roads in the development of Spanish art while Street confined himself to the influence of the tide of bishops and other organizers who lapped like a flood across the mountains and poured down over the redeemed lands, ever increasing in extent. Both were effective, and in the XIIth century architecture burst into astonishing splendor. Of course it was French Romanesque in impulse but even in these beginnings the indelible Spanish character asserted itself, moulding and transforming the original motives in a thousand ways until the result could never be mistaken for French or Burgundian or any other sort of work.
Spain did this to every style. The fragments of Visigothic art are different; Moorish architecture grew up in Spain and was never thought of in Africa or Arabia; the Gothic of Spain, except for a few churches built by French masters and work
men — Leon for example — is as much Spanish Gothic as English work is English Gothic — or German is German Gothic for that matter. As for Renaissance, it is quite another story here, and I shall return to it in my next article. The point I wish to make now is that Spanish Gothic (like Spanish Renaissance) is one of the great styles of the world and he who knows only the Gothic of
France and England knows only a part of the story. I knew nothing of this until two years ago, and now I am ashamed that I ever wrote about Gothic at all, even though I had seen practically all the cathedrals and monastic establishments, and a good proportion of the parish churches, in England, France and the Low Countries — let alone Italy and western Germany. It is strange how one escapes his fate for so many years. However, it is sure to come at last.
It is impossible to cover the whole field of Gothic in one article, from the almost pure French of Leon to the pure Catalan of Barcelona; from the dry Cistercian of Poblet to the delicate fantasy of Salamanca, the vast glory of Toledo and Seville. Every Kingdom, — for Spain is less a single state than a communitas communitatum — has something approaching a style of its own, and with many
AMBULATORY AND TRASCORO, THE CATHEDRAL, TOLEDO
(From a photograph by Arthur Byne)
AMBULATORY AND TRANSEPT FROM SOUTH AISLE,
THE CATHEDRAL, AVILA