and the new façades that appear are simply lamentable; the poorest type of French and Teutonic “Art Nouveau though as I say, pitifully striving with tiles and metalwork and “yeseria,” to accomplish a suggestion of Spanish quality.
It is architects alone who have redeemed architecture in spite of the schools and the public and civilization generally, but I sometimes wonder if they have not almost as much to answer for on the other side by reason of the quite awful things they produced and established during their formative period.
Of course practically all of the exquisite art of the Moors has vanished, ruthlessly obliterated by their conquerors. A few fragments remain here and there apart from the Alhambra and the reconstructed Alcazar in Seville. There is the perfect Generalife at Granada, and a few rooms lost in rebuilt edifices. In Toledo one may stumble on the loveliest possible apartments where they are least expected—I found one princely suite in a bakery, and another used as an art club—but generally speaking this wonder of a brilliant civilization has been swept away. It must have been ex
ceedingly lovely, judging from history and tradition and the poor few fragments we bave. There were great cities miles in circuit with hundreds of thousands of people, and with mosques, baths, bazaars, universities, palaces and pleasure gardens out of the Arabian Nights. Ceilings of cedar set with ivory and mother-of-pearl, walls sheeted with splendid tiles; hangings and couches of gold-embroidered stuffs ; marble courts with fountains and pools and watercourses; flowers everywhere, and orchards, gardens, groves of cypress and ilex and, in the South, palms and oranges and strange African fruits. And amidst it all a Moorish chivalry in splendid vestments and damascened armour from Toledo ; music, love-making, learning and fighting ; and all this while the rest of Europe was sunk in the Dark Ages before the dawn of the true Mediaeval ism. All is gone now, swept entirely away, with only dim tradition to tell of the earthly paradise that once bloomed on these wind-swept highlands and in the sultry levels on the edges of the Mediterranean Sea.
Something did remain, however, besides legend and half-forgotten story, and this was the craft of the Moorish workman, for they were taken over by the Christian conquerors and their hands
DETAIL OF REFECTORY WINDOW IN CONVENT OF SANTA CLARA, SEVILLE
(From “Spanish Interiors and Furniture.” By permission of William Helburn, Inc.)
ENTRANCE HALL, CASA DEL GRECO, TOLEDO
(From “Spanish Interiors and Furniture.” By permission of
William Helburn, Inc.)
It is architects alone who have redeemed architecture in spite of the schools and the public and civilization generally, but I sometimes wonder if they have not almost as much to answer for on the other side by reason of the quite awful things they produced and established during their formative period.
Of course practically all of the exquisite art of the Moors has vanished, ruthlessly obliterated by their conquerors. A few fragments remain here and there apart from the Alhambra and the reconstructed Alcazar in Seville. There is the perfect Generalife at Granada, and a few rooms lost in rebuilt edifices. In Toledo one may stumble on the loveliest possible apartments where they are least expected—I found one princely suite in a bakery, and another used as an art club—but generally speaking this wonder of a brilliant civilization has been swept away. It must have been ex
ceedingly lovely, judging from history and tradition and the poor few fragments we bave. There were great cities miles in circuit with hundreds of thousands of people, and with mosques, baths, bazaars, universities, palaces and pleasure gardens out of the Arabian Nights. Ceilings of cedar set with ivory and mother-of-pearl, walls sheeted with splendid tiles; hangings and couches of gold-embroidered stuffs ; marble courts with fountains and pools and watercourses; flowers everywhere, and orchards, gardens, groves of cypress and ilex and, in the South, palms and oranges and strange African fruits. And amidst it all a Moorish chivalry in splendid vestments and damascened armour from Toledo ; music, love-making, learning and fighting ; and all this while the rest of Europe was sunk in the Dark Ages before the dawn of the true Mediaeval ism. All is gone now, swept entirely away, with only dim tradition to tell of the earthly paradise that once bloomed on these wind-swept highlands and in the sultry levels on the edges of the Mediterranean Sea.
Something did remain, however, besides legend and half-forgotten story, and this was the craft of the Moorish workman, for they were taken over by the Christian conquerors and their hands
DETAIL OF REFECTORY WINDOW IN CONVENT OF SANTA CLARA, SEVILLE
(From “Spanish Interiors and Furniture.” By permission of William Helburn, Inc.)
ENTRANCE HALL, CASA DEL GRECO, TOLEDO
(From “Spanish Interiors and Furniture.” By permission of
William Helburn, Inc.)