interior variants, yet through all runs Spanish character, unmistakable, indomitable; magnificence curbed by austerity, adventure that dares anything, but humility that excludes presumption. With it all a wealth of invention and (up to the time of Charles V) an impeccable sense of beauty that transfigure borrowed motives and make them new. The field is so wide, the material so great in quantity that all that is possible here is a few notes on a few distinguished types; for example, the school of Cataluña, the last churches of Juan Gil de Hontañon, Burgos and Seville. This means leaving out Toledo, as well as Leon, not to mention other wonders, but after all the former, Street to the contrary, is not the finest interior in Spain, still less in the world, while the latter is the French tracery of stone to support stained glass raised to the final point of delicate tenuity. Street says that Toledo was the work of a French master mason, but I think not, for the French never erred in point of proportions, while Toledo, wonderful as it is, fails here, and notably. It is vastly impressive but its effect comes largely from its complete setting of fine stained glass and its wealth
of altars, shrines, tombs and other garnishing.
This matter is important; I mean the furnishing of Spanish churches, for it is only here that you can still see what a Christian church looked like in the Middle Ages or the time of the Renaissance. Italy does pretty well but there was no Gothic there, and the great works are basilican, Byzantine or Renaissance. Belgium has kept many churches fairly intact, but France and England are hopeless. What the Protestants did not destroy (little enough as a matter of fact) the revolutionists of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries obliterated, and the scattered fragments that remained were cast out by the restorers of the XIXth century. Gray, cold, barren, the cathedrals of the North are about as unlike what they were, and
were meant to be, as one can imagine. Gothic art was color quite as much as form, but above all else it was alive, and this quality came through incessant use and the piling up of material centers of devotion and commemoration. Architecture was only a part; the shell, the setting of the jewels, and when these are gone, even the architecture loses half its effectiveness.
Is this why modern Gothic is so dull? Partly,
I believe. We build Episcopal churches after the most approved manner, and are allowed perhaps one altar with two candles, no color and gold, and two Prayer Book services on Sundays. We do the same thing (mirabile dictu! ) for Presbyterians, only
without the altar, and with the building closed on week days, and then wonder why the work is not living.
Spain gives the answer. There the cathedrals and churches are vividly alive because they are used all the time, in a dozen different ways, and they are full, until the walls bulge, with marvellous works of art of every kind. Sculptors, painters, metalworkers, cabinetmakers, carvers, embroiderers, goldsmiths, all have worked without stint — and their deeds live after them and record their glory. Of course the Spanish churches have suffered, but not at the hands of fanatics and iconoclasts, except the monasteries. Puritanism never raged within their walls, nor revolution. What spoliation there was, and it was of no mean order, was at the hands of the French invaders who robbed mercilessly, with particular attention to works in gold and silver, and anything set with jewels. There are almost no Mediæval vestments or goldsmiths’ work left in Spain — all of which is one reason why the French are the one people on earth the Spanish cannot endure. Of course during the later Renaissance many marvellous old altars, retablos and shrines were demolished to give place to Rococo and Chiruguresque magnificence, sheeted with gold and as amorphous and convoluted as the
TOLEDO CATHEDRAL
LOOKING THROUGH NAVE AISLE, TOWARD HIGH ALTAR (From a photograph by Arthur Byne)
of altars, shrines, tombs and other garnishing.
This matter is important; I mean the furnishing of Spanish churches, for it is only here that you can still see what a Christian church looked like in the Middle Ages or the time of the Renaissance. Italy does pretty well but there was no Gothic there, and the great works are basilican, Byzantine or Renaissance. Belgium has kept many churches fairly intact, but France and England are hopeless. What the Protestants did not destroy (little enough as a matter of fact) the revolutionists of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries obliterated, and the scattered fragments that remained were cast out by the restorers of the XIXth century. Gray, cold, barren, the cathedrals of the North are about as unlike what they were, and
were meant to be, as one can imagine. Gothic art was color quite as much as form, but above all else it was alive, and this quality came through incessant use and the piling up of material centers of devotion and commemoration. Architecture was only a part; the shell, the setting of the jewels, and when these are gone, even the architecture loses half its effectiveness.
Is this why modern Gothic is so dull? Partly,
I believe. We build Episcopal churches after the most approved manner, and are allowed perhaps one altar with two candles, no color and gold, and two Prayer Book services on Sundays. We do the same thing (mirabile dictu! ) for Presbyterians, only
without the altar, and with the building closed on week days, and then wonder why the work is not living.
Spain gives the answer. There the cathedrals and churches are vividly alive because they are used all the time, in a dozen different ways, and they are full, until the walls bulge, with marvellous works of art of every kind. Sculptors, painters, metalworkers, cabinetmakers, carvers, embroiderers, goldsmiths, all have worked without stint — and their deeds live after them and record their glory. Of course the Spanish churches have suffered, but not at the hands of fanatics and iconoclasts, except the monasteries. Puritanism never raged within their walls, nor revolution. What spoliation there was, and it was of no mean order, was at the hands of the French invaders who robbed mercilessly, with particular attention to works in gold and silver, and anything set with jewels. There are almost no Mediæval vestments or goldsmiths’ work left in Spain — all of which is one reason why the French are the one people on earth the Spanish cannot endure. Of course during the later Renaissance many marvellous old altars, retablos and shrines were demolished to give place to Rococo and Chiruguresque magnificence, sheeted with gold and as amorphous and convoluted as the
TOLEDO CATHEDRAL
LOOKING THROUGH NAVE AISLE, TOWARD HIGH ALTAR (From a photograph by Arthur Byne)