Chapter XXIX: Moorish Art in Southern Europe (2)

The injunction of Mohammed concerning the representation of animal forms was disregarded almost from the earliest days of Moslem dominion. Even before the tenth century, Mussulman artists who depicted living beings seem to have abounded in the countries subject to Islam. A biography of them is given by Makrisi, in which great talents are ascribed to those of Egypt. Their works were displayed not only in wood and stone, but on silk, velvet, and cloth of gold. The treasury of the Fatimite Khalif, Mostansir, contained peacocks and gazelles of life-size, made of the precious metals enriched with magnificent gems. Al-Amin, the son and successor of Harun-al-Raschid, possessed a number of magnificent barges, fashioned like birds and animals and painted in imitation of their living models, whose oarsmen were concealed from view. As these monsters, apparently instinct with life, moved mysteriously over the Tigris, they excited the astonishment of the multitude as inventions of the genii. From the statement of the great historian, Ibn-Khaldun, who visited Granada in 1363, the representation of well-known events, as well as of the features of distinguished personages on the walls of houses in that city, must have been common. He was greatly scandalized by this unorthodox custom, which, although deriving its origin from the Castilians, was constantly practised by those who called themselves good Mussulmans, among whom were numbered many artists who had been instructed by the Byzantine and Persian residents of the capital.

Nor was sculpture, an art implying an even more flagrant violation of Koranic precept than that exhibited by the less conspicuous objects produced by the brush and the pencil, neglected by Mohammedans. Arabic histories are full of allusions to these productions. Khumaruyah, Sultan of Egypt, in the ninth century had a great hall in his palace filled with statues of the women of his harem. The knockers on the doors of many of the mansions of Bagdad were carved in the shapes of grotesque animals. Existing examples, few as they are, of the sculpture of the Hispano-Arab period show to what an extent religious prejudice was defied by the Mussulmans of Spain.

The doctors of the law disagreed as to the interpretation of the command of the Koran which banished from the realm of art one of its most useful and suggestive features. Some regarded it in the light of an absolute prohibition to be construed in its broadest significance; to others it seemed to refer only to the fabrication and worship of idols. The Spanish Arabs, who had greater liberality and a larger share of philosophical indifference than their Oriental brethren, apparently adhered to the latter opinion. At all events, the admonition generally respected as a cardinal principle of the orthodox believer was ignored from the very foundation of the khalifate, and even the sanctuary of Islam was defiled by the presence of sculptured forms of animal life; in the Great Mosque of Abd-al-Rahman, the Seven Sleepers and the raven despatched from the ark by Noah are chiselled upon the capitals; over the portal of Medina-al-Zahrâ stood the effigy of the beautiful favorite whose vanity had suggested the erection of that magnificent edifice; its principal fountain was embellished with the figures of twelve different quadrupeds of gold incrusted with precious stones; in the designs of its rich hangings were interwoven wild beasts and birds of brilliant plumage, whose forms, delineated with amazing skill, appeared to move with the swaying of the silken tapestry; in one of the squares of the capital stood a lion, cast in bronze and plated with gold, whose eyes were rubies, and from whose mouth gushed the refreshing waters brought from the springs of the distant sierra. In the fairy palace of Rusafah, equal to its rival in the splendor of its appointments and inferior only in dimensions, silver swans floated upon the glossy surface of the lakes, and the fountains displayed the effigies of men and animals carved in marble and jasper by a cunning hand. The talismanic horseman of King Habus, described in history and immortalized by fiction, is another instance of this disregard of Koranic injunction, again confirmed by the two marble lions of the Moorish mint and by the famous twelve of the Alhambra.

But the most curious of these examples of violated law are the paintings upon the ceiling of the Hall of Justice in that palace, and which are supposed to have been executed during the fourteenth century. Two of them represent scenes of war and the chase, but no data survive by which it can be determined whether they are historic or legendary. The third contains portraits of ten kings of Granada, whose rank is indicated by the royal blazons represented in the central painting. The faces, sober, dignified, majestic, are evidently drawn from life, and a tradition exists that the features of some of them were recognized by old Moslems of Granada when, after the Reconquest, they were for the first time exposed to public inspection; while the turbans, the flowing robes of various colors, the swords with curious hilts and scabbards of gold and silver, the yellow slippers, at once suggest the Orient; and place before the eye the exact costumes, and perhaps the lineaments, of those princes who long maintained in a corner of hostile Europe the legends, the belief, and the civilization of the Mohammedan world. These unique works are of Arabic origin, a fact established by the monograms traced upon them, which denote unmistakably the nationality of the artist. In numerous particulars they indicate lack of experience and cultivation. The figures are rudely delineated, the positions strained and awkward. None exhibit the slightest grace; some are absolutely grotesque; the colors are not distributed harmoniously; no attention is paid to the rules of perspective; the lines are sharply and unpleasantly defined; there is no symmetry of proportion, no dexterous imitation of those natural features which impart to a painting life and energy. The mechanical arrangement is as crude as the pictorial execution. Upon a wooden framework, pigskins were stretched and fastened, and over these a layer of gypsum was spread, forming the foundation for the colors. The flatness of the latter and the golden ground of the portraits are indications of Byzantine taste and influence.

Among the architectural decorations employed by Moorish artists, none were more popular or more susceptible of variety of arrangement and harmony of effect than those formed by the letters of the Arabic alphabet. The inscriptions on the walls of Moorish edifices constitute no inconsiderable part of their choicest ornamentation. Those of the Peninsula are principally devoted to mottoes of a religious nature or to legends illustrating the grandeur and munificence of the sovereign. In some instances, a poem, evidently composed for the purpose, and celebrating the virtues of the prince or the beauty of the building it adorned, glittered upon the panelled walls or encircled the apartment with characters of living fire. The square Cufic letters used in the first buildings of the khalifate were eventually superseded by the graceful curves of the Neshki, of African script, which is seen in all its perfection in the Alhambra. So admirably are these characters adapted to the purposes of decoration that Spanish and Italian workmen, ignorant of their significance and supposing them to be arabesques, have frequently inserted Koranic inscriptions among the carvings of Christian churches; and it is said that they are even to be seen upon the proud façade of St. Peter’s at Rome. What a circumstance of exquisite irony it would be, as a French writer pertinently suggests, if, over the portal of the grandest temple of Christendom, the fountain of trinitarian orthodoxy, the stronghold of Catholicism, the seat of the infallible Vicar of Christ, should be found inscribed the Mohammedan declaration of faith proclaiming the mission of the Arabian Prophet and the unity of God!

The colors most affected by the Spanish-Moslem in his interior decorations were vermilion and ultramarine, both esteemed by artists as much for durability as for brilliancy; and the permanence of those used by the Moors of Granada, whose vivid tints have been perfectly preserved through the lapse of ages, attest their extraordinary purity and excellence. While these remained the basis of artistic coloring, others--such as green, black, yellow, and purple--were sparingly employed, excepting in the mosaics, which blaze with a mingled mass of gorgeous hues.

No feature of Moslem civilization has lingered more persistently in the Peninsula than its architecture. The scanty knowledge of the Visigothic builder was swept away by the Conquest. The pride of the Castilian, bred to arms and incompetent by education and experience, revolted at the restraints and drudgery incident to such an occupation. As a result, Arabic artisans constructed most of the edifices erected for years after the fall of the Saracen power, and the predominance of their artistic ideas gave rise to a new style called Mudejar, whose creations are often difficult to distinguish from those of the original Moorish order. No more flattering tribute can be paid to their accomplishments than the circumstance that no class of buildings profited so much by their talents as those erected under the auspices of the Church. After the capture of Cordova by the Castilians, Moorish masons and carpenters were compelled to work for a specified period every year on these sacred structures, in consideration of which they were exempted from the payment of taxes. Turbaned artificers, vassals of the clergy, assisted in the construction of some of the noblest piles of the Peninsula; the walls of great monasteries, the windows of lofty spires, exhibit the engrailed and horseshoe arches of the Moor; his skill was exercised in the chiselling of the intricate designs which cover the fronts of magnificent cathedrals; a chapel in the grand metropolitan church of Toledo, the seat of the Primate of Spain, which dates from the thirteenth century, is a beautiful specimen of Mudejar art. This influence is also apparent in many of the finest ecclesiastical edifices of France,--in the churches of Maguelonne, in the cathedral of Puy, and in the ancient abbeys of Provence and Languedoc. It is said by Dulaure, in his “Histoire de Paris,” that Moorish architects assisted in the construction of Notre Dame.

The absence of all remains of sepulchral architecture dating from the Mohammedan period deprives posterity of one of the most reliable standards by which the customs, the sentiments, and the characteristics of a nation may be determined. In common with all Semitic races, the Arabs seldom reared imposing monuments to the dead. No trace of a tomb which enclosed the body of any of the Ommeyade khalifs has been discovered; the very place of their erection was lost in the tempest of ruin which accompanied the Almoravide conquest. The few existing in the Alhambra were simple marble sarcophagi, without ornament, upon whose lids were sculptured long inscriptions in letters of gold on a ground of blue. Of these slabs but one remains, for the tombs, abandoned to the curiosity of the rabble when Granada was taken, perished, and the bones of the princes who had illumined all Europe by their genius and learning were unceremoniously cast outside the walls.

Deprived to a great extent of the artistic resources to be obtained from the representation of the forms of animal life, the Moslem utilized with unrivalled skill the segments of geometrical figures and the graceful foliage of the vegetable world for the manifold purposes of decoration. Every line in the complex designs of mosaic is the side or the curve of a polygon, a circle, or an ellipse; the eminently beautiful domes of wood and of stucco were suggested by the symmetrical productions of nature,--the hemispherical were modelled after the section of an orange, by which name they were known to the Arab; the stalactitic were striking adaptations of the pomegranate divested of its seeds. The arabesques are but reproductions of vines and tendrils combined in wonderful mazes of tracery; the lotus, that sacred emblem of India and Egypt whose mysterious significance was long a secret of the sacerdotal office, is sculptured upon panel, cornice, and capital; the rose nestles amidst the entwined ornamentation of the walls; the frondage of the palm is simulated by the sweeping arches which cross and intersect like the drooping branches of the date-forests of the Nile. By other classes of natural and inanimate objects, by the jewels of the firmament, and by the denizens of the sea, was contributed the inspiration that imparted to architectural adornment its choicest forms of elegance and beauty. The great marble shell, fifteen feet in diameter and carved from a single block, which covers the sanctuary of the Mosque of Cordova, is one of the most curious and highly finished works that ever proceeded from the chisel of the Moslem sculptor. Its fidelity to nature, its perfect proportions, the striking position it occupies, render it one of the most interesting objects in the ancient temple whose holy of holies it embellishes. Stars are scattered in endless profusion throughout the Alhambra; in the centre of mosaic designs; through the belts of floral patterns which encompass the halls; in the lofty ceilings, where in the uncertain light their golden lustre recalls the sparkle of their originals on the spotless ground of the Southern heavens.

The painted windows, sparingly distributed in buildings erected by the jealous Moslem, were yet one of their most enchanting and characteristic features. No trace of them appears in the constructions of the khalifate; their existence during the age of transition is a matter of conjecture; and it is only in the last half of the final period of Hispano-Arab architecture that this art attained its highest development. The labors of the Gothic artist have from time immemorial been celebrated as the most perfect of their kind; and the jewelled designs whose tints illumine the aisles of mediæval cathedrals would seem to be of incomparable brilliancy of color and harmony of effect. And yet competent judges have pronounced that these superb works were rivalled, if not surpassed, by the rich and elegant combinations of Arabian genius. There is no reason to believe that the execution of the windows was inferior in beauty to the decoration of the walls; the same dexterity of hand, accuracy of eye, and correctness of taste must have presided over both; and a glaring deficiency in any prominent part must have been prejudicial to all. The patience which was not exhausted by years of toil upon an object intended for the uses of the harem, and to be seen by comparatively few, would not be likely to neglect the designs whose gorgeous hues were a principal attraction of the palace, the ornament and the glory of the capital. The stained glass employed was of every color, and corresponded in pattern with the arabesques of the interiors; and the blazons and devices of royalty disposed at intervals through the mass of ornament reminded the observer of the greatness of the monarch under whose auspices the work was completed. The exquisite charm of these effects when combined with those of the walls and cupolas must be imagined, for no description can convey an adequate idea of their surpassing excellence.

Such was the rise, the progress, the culmination of architectural construction and embellishment in the states of Mohammedan Spain. The modifications--dependent upon economic conditions, upon wide and varied acquaintance with the masterpieces of other races, upon the development of more correct conceptions of the harmonious and the beautiful--which were undergone by this branch of the arts are more pronounced than is usually noticeable in the material and intellectual progress of a people from a state of barbarism to the highest point in the scale of civilization. The character of the Arab is, however, anomalous, independent of precedent, and apparently subject to few of those laws whose operation prescribes the career and fixes the ultimate fate of nations. The simplicity of form and comparative absence of decoration characteristic of a nomadic race are conspicuous in its first great architectural achievement,--a temple dedicated to the unity of God. In glaring contrast appears the culminating effort of its labors, a palace reared for the purposes of voluptuous indulgence, where even the principles of durable construction were apparently sacrificed to the pomp and prodigality of excessive adornment, a precursor of impending dissolution, an unmistakable indication of decadence. Thus the Arabs, like all races that preceded them, have recorded their deeds in the forms and inscriptions of their architectural monuments; permanent registers of the grandeur and depth of religious sentiment; suggestive memorials of proficiency in the arts of peace; potent manifestations of national genius, energy, and culture.

The artistic tastes of the Moslems, always largely controlled by pious considerations, were displayed, not only in the construction of splendid edifices, but in the embellishment of their most common accessories. The well-curbs, cylinders of marble or of enamelled pottery, girdled with raised inscriptions in gold and originally placed in court-yards, are examples of the persistence of Oriental tradition as well as of the reverence with which the Arab regarded that element which was the most precious treasure of the Desert.

The use of water for the purposes of ceremonial lustration is a custom of unknown antiquity. It was constantly employed in the sacerdotal mysteries of Egypt, India, Persia. The inhabitants of those countries venerated it as representing an active force in their systems of cosmogony. The Egyptians worshipped the Nile; the Hindus still sacrifice to the Ganges. By the former the rare geological formation of water crystals was regarded with peculiar reverence, because the drops thus mysteriously inclosed in their transparent envelope were believed to be spirits imprisoned by divine agency. In the traditions of Phœnicia the sacredness of springs was continually referred to; the Greeks assigned to each element a place in Olympus; the superstitious Roman sculptured his well-curbs with scenes of mythology or with graceful garlands of flowers. No nation of antiquity, however, ascribed such extraordinary importance to the divine virtues of water as the Hebrews. In the time of Abraham wells were regarded as of peculiar sanctity. Their locality confirmed the sacredness and obligation of an oath; it was a token of alliance, a place of reconciliation for enemies, a symbol which ratified and enforced the validity of contracts. The only permanent characteristic recognized by the nomadic Israelite was the possession of a well, which established the residence and station of his tribe.

The sacred character which invested the sources of water was intensified by the climatic conditions which magnified its importance and increased its value. It is not strange that the heat and drought of the Desert should have imparted to that indispensable fluid some of the beneficent attributes of Divine Power. The unsettled state of tribal existence is attributable solely to its scarcity. Its profusion was synonymous with fertility, prosperity, abundance. Its prominence, actual and symbolic, in the Jewish religious system constantly recurs in the Bible. The Hebrews made use of it on every important occasion, in every ceremony which called for the exercise of its mysterious virtues. They sprinkled it over the victims of sacrifice. They purified themselves with it before entering the precincts of the Temple. The veneration with which they regarded its ceremonial usage was transmitted to Christianity, which has consecrated its application as a rite indispensable to salvation. The dispersion of the Jews by the Romans familiarized every nation that received them with their customs, and not a few adopted the latter after more or less modification. Many of the fugitives settled in Yemen and other parts of Arabia, where their influence subsequently played an important _rôle_ in the formation of the creed of Mohammed, whose doctrines are so largely of Hebrew and Christian derivation. From them the Arabs absorbed many traditions centuries old, which had been transmitted through numerous nations to the credulous Jews, who thus became the depositaries of all.

In the extensive and varied domain of the industrial and the useful arts, Hispano-Arab genius developed no less grace and dexterity than in the conspicuous and permanent creations of the architect. The effect of Koranic restrictions was to impede all advance until the artisan evaded or openly disregarded them. To the last, however, the universal prevalence of that religious sentiment, which was at once the incentive and the power of Islamism and inspired the skill that designed even the most homely articles of domestic use, as well as the exquisite ornaments of the palace, was disclosed by all the products of Arabian industry. Texts from the Koran were carved upon the wooden stamps used by the baker. They formed the bit of the key that unlocked the great door of the castle. On swords and knives, on vases and thimbles, on garments and banners, on the massive bracelets of the rich, on the rudely fashioned but highly treasured amulets of the poor, were engraved or embroidered legends of pious origin and significance. These objects have for the greater part disappeared. The prejudice fostered by centuries of unrelenting hostility, the aversion entertained by the ministers of an antagonistic and triumphant faith, have, as far as human diligence could accomplish it, destroyed all the smaller and more inconspicuous evidences of Moorish civilization. The durability of their materials, the excellence of their workmanship, and the multiplicity of uses to which these articles were destined, would imply that vast numbers of them would still be met with, especially in the old Moslem provinces of Spain. But such is not the case. The hatred of the Spaniard for everything Mohammedan extended even to the inanimate objects on which his vanquished enemies had exercised their skill, and which were at once suggestive of heresy and, indirectly, of his own ignorance and mechanical incapacity. It was the Christian custodians of the Mosque of Cordova who broke to pieces its magnificent pulpit and lectern for the jewels and ivory they contained; it was Ximenes, one of the greatest scholars of his time, who raised in the square of Granada the funeral pyre of Arabic literature; it was Philip II., the most powerful of European sovereigns and the worthy representative of his nation and his age, who ordered every stone in Toledo which bore an Arabic inscription to be destroyed. Much perished by the African invasions and the bloody seditions which followed them. Many articles of gold and silver, far more precious for their workmanship than for their intrinsic value, were consigned by the ignorant and the avaricious to the blow-pipe and the crucible. In the face of such indiscriminate and systematic destruction, whose spirit even massive edifices have not been able to withstand, it is not strange that so few of the minor objects of general utility have survived. Indeed, the work of ruin has been so thorough that there are now many educated persons in Spain who refuse to credit the artistic ability of the Saracens, on account of the dearth of evidence produced by the instrumentality of their own ancestors.

Chief among the branches of mechanical industry in which the Spanish Moors excelled was the treatment of metals. The casting of bronze, especially in large pieces,--an art requiring the greatest skill even in our day,--they understood to perfection. The specimens which have been preserved exhibit a smoothness unusual in works of this description, and reveal no subsequent finish with the burin or the file. Not only statuary, but utensils for worship as well as for domestic use--lamps, censers, vases, knives, cups, and hundreds of other articles--were produced by this convenient process. Their ornamentation, especially when they were destined for the service of the mosque, was rich and graceful; interlaced with the arabesques were pious mottoes and inscriptions; in some the parts in relief were gilded. An exquisite Arab vase, which tradition referred to the Crusades, but which most probably derived its origin from the Mussulmans of Spain, was for several centuries used in the baptismal ceremony of the infant princes of France.

The complete destruction of portable objects of the Mohammedan period during the centuries of ignorance and fanaticism which followed the Reconquest may be inferred from the non-existence of Moorish lamps, necessarily one of the most common utensils of both temple and habitation. It is a matter of historic record that in the Great Mosque of Cordova were suspended nearly two thousand; and, as there were seven hundred other edifices devoted to the worship of Islam in the Saracen metropolis, the number in use in that city was obviously immense, and the total amount throughout the empire must have been incalculable. And yet, of all these, not one is known to have survived uninjured. The so-called lamp of the Alhambra, which was captured at the taking of Oran and is supposed to have belonged to the mosque of that palace, is the only remaining example of this branch of Arab art once so flourishing, but which, with innumerable others, disappeared forever with the Castilian occupation. Their connection with the detested worship of Mohammed no doubt supplied the motive for this thorough annihilation.

Arabic lamps were of various metals, gold, silver, copper, or bronze. They contained two or more lights, placed one above the other, their rays being tempered by a polygonal screen, whose sides presented different patterns in arabesques cast or carved in the metal, producing a charming effect from the illumination within. From the base usually hung four spheres of open-work formed of lotus or palm leaves and pomegranates, and which exhibited verses of poetry or Koranic legends,--reminiscences of the “knops and flowers” which were suspended from each branch of the sacred candlestick in the Hebrew Tabernacle. In addition to metals, glass of different colors was frequently employed in these works of art, whose exquisite finish constituted their greatest value. The materials were almost always obtained from the spoil of Christian churches,--from the gold and silver vessels of the altar, from the candelabra and from the bells,--trophies which gratified the piety of the Moslem, and contributed in no small degree to the pride and exultation of victory.

Accident or good fortune has preserved for the examination of posterity a few of the numerous images which the Arab artists cast in bronze. Among them are a lion and a gazelle, whose history cannot be traced, but which the researches of archæology have assigned to one of the sumptuous palaces which adorned the suburbs of Cordova. These rare and interesting evidences of Moslem dexterity no doubt originally formed part of a fountain; they belong to the most advanced period of the khalifate; the forms are somewhat grotesque, but the mechanical execution is not inferior in delicacy to that of the best examples of the present age. Cufic legends are inscribed upon them, and there are indications that their eyes were formed of precious stones, as was the custom in Moorish Spain.

The frequent recurrence of the lion among the sculptures of Moslem civilization attests the symbolic importance with which that animal was regarded by those whose religion prohibited the representation of every species of animal life. In Arabic tradition that royal beast had acquired an important, almost a sacred, significance. With the eagle, it had been assigned a place in the eighth heaven of the Mohammedan faith. From the earliest ages its strength and ferocity had awakened the awe of the superstitious and imperfectly protected tribes of the Desert. It was recognized as the representative of power; the emblem of energy, nobility, and courage. With the Spanish Arabs, these sentiments of fear and respect were intensified by considerations of policy, custom, and tradition. In the enchanting gardens of palaces reared by the greatest khalifs stood bronze statues of lions with eyes of rubies and emeralds. They were the supporters of the arms of the Nazerite kings. Their marble effigies guarded the entrance to the royal mint. In the famous court of the Alhambra, they replaced the twelve oxen that sustained the brazen laver of Solomon, of which the fountain of that palace is an imitation. The Moslem princes of the Peninsula gloried in the title of “Lion of Battle.” Arabic tradition was in time confirmed and strengthened by the influx of Persian ideas through constant intercourse with the Orient, where the lion was a symbol of the Principle of Good.

The art of damascening metals was, as the name itself implies, of Syrian origin, and was practised as early as the twelfth century. In its application to arms and armor the Moorish artificers of Spain had no superiors. Exquisite specimens of their skill have descended to our time, not only in helmets and cuirasses,--trophies of many a bloody field,--but in the suits eagerly sought after in intervals of peace by the knights of Christian Europe. The arms forged upon the Tagus, whose waters, it was supposed, possessed some peculiar property that imparted an unrivalled temper to blades of steel, were famous even during the Visigothic domination. Under the Moors, however, the weapons that issued from the armories of that ancient city attained their greatest excellence and reputation. Toledo did not by any means enjoy a monopoly of this manufacture, which was carried on with great success in many other towns; the swords of Seville especially enjoyed a wide and deserved celebrity. This chosen weapon of the Arab was cherished with peculiar pride and fondness. Upon its hilt and scabbard were lavished the finest efforts of the enameller’s and the jeweller’s art. The temper of its blade was of such perfection that an iron rod could be easily cloven without its edge exhibiting the slightest blemish. Broad and heavy, as was required by the rough usage they were destined to undergo, these weapons were curiously wrought with gold and silver tracery, alternating with quaint or pious inscriptions. No nation excelled the Spanish Moslems in the costly and exquisite adornment of their arms. The hilts were not infrequently of massy gold enriched with many colored enamels and set with gems. The scabbards, of purple or scarlet velvet, glittered with filigreed and jewelled mountings. Of most capricious forms were the guards, sometimes representing the heads of elephants or dragons, at others carved in ovals, globes, and crosses; always inlaid with arabesques of the precious metals, representing floral designs and intricate geometrical figures, with the omnipresent legend, suggestive of the unquenchable fervor of the Moslem faith.

The peculiar veneration with which the Hispano-Arab regarded his favorite weapon is thus disclosed by the beauty and excellence of its form and materials and by the sacred texts inscribed upon its blade. Many considerations contributed to invest the sword with a religious character, and to enhance its moral influence as well as its material value. Its adoption was intimately connected with the most cherished associations of the Arab race. Its use was derived from the Hebrews, that nation of common ancestry, mode of life, and historical traditions. It was carried by the cherubim who guarded the gates of Paradise. The Khalif Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, whose valor was proverbial, rejoiced in the appellation of the “Sword of God.” Although not a weapon adapted to the desultory warfare of a nomadic people, it had won the victories of Islam from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas, from the Oxus to the equator. It had established the prowess of the champion of the tribe in many a chivalric encounter before the camel’s-hair tents grouped in the unbroken solitude of the Desert. Its manufacture, perfected at Damascus, had travelled to the Spanish Peninsula in the train of the Ommeyade partisans, who sought protection and honor under the beneficent rule of that famous dynasty; and it was in Syria that Biblical and Koranic tradition placed the forge of Tubal-Cain, the first of smiths and armorers. Popular superstition imputed to it many mysterious and talismanic attributes, such as the emission of peculiar odors and the utterance of a groan at the death of the owner. In the Arabic language, as already stated, a thousand different names are used to designate the sword, a fact which indicates the significance attaching to this weapon, ever in the hand of the warrior, as well as the infinite capacity of the idiom in which its varieties and its qualities are expressed.

The last epoch of Moslem civilization was especially remarkable for the ingenious processes and exquisite workmanship developed in the fabrication of vitreous mosaics and filigree jewelry. The Moorish craftsmen understood the difficult art of encrusting metals with various crystals and artificial stones; their enamels were of every color and of exceeding fineness; their goldsmiths had acquired such dexterity that they could make a single grain of that metal, beaten into a sheet, cover a space of fifty-six square inches. Their wares, originally Byzantine in style, kept pace with the progress of other branches of artistic industry, and, before the close of their domination, were not inferior in any respect to those made in Italy and Germany four centuries afterwards.

In the glyptic art, as developed by the Spanish Arabs, the inclination to the mysterious and the supernatural, common to all members of the Semitic race, found full expression. The traditional seal of Solomon, whose wonderful power made the forces of nature and the genii of the spirit world alike subservient to his will, confirmed the hereditary belief of the Moslem in amulets, charms, and talismans. The device of that famous ring is variously supposed to have been the ineffable name of God, or a star formed by the combination of two equilateral triangles. Be this as it may, its magical virtues were a part of the creed of every uneducated Arab, in whose mind the idolatrous and superstitious practices of Paganism seemed ineradicable. The imaginary talismanic qualities of certain stones--such as the carnelian, the garnet, and the onyx--had far more connection with their popular use than any passion for ornament or love of display. Many were regarded as specifics for various ailments, others were efficacious in averting the malign influences of sorcery. The engraving of gems conformed to the general principles and characteristics of the arts as pursued by the Arabs. The process of the cameo does not seem to have been adopted by them, but the word itself, which does not exist in the vocabularies of antiquity, would seem to be derived from the Arabic kamh, meaning “hump” or “projection.” The name or monogram of the owner, a verse of the Koran, a wreath of entwined foliage, a complex design of geometric lines and curves, these were the sole objects upon which the talents of the artist might be legitimately exercised. As in ancient Egypt, when the name of Deity appeared in the inscription, it was placed on the highest part of the stone; and this concession to celestial dignity was observed even in the signets of the proudest of sovereigns. Here also artistic skill was greatly hampered by the prohibition relating to the representation of animal life, but no example of its violation in this department of the arts is known to exist. The engraved stones of the Spanish Mohammedan period are notable for the sharpness of their lines, the harmony of their patterns, and the grace and delicacy of their ornamentation. Signets formed the greater number, but amulets constituted no small part of the productions of the Moorish lapidary. The hand, symbolic of the five cardinal precepts of Islam, and the heart, whose mystic influence is still tacitly recognized even by Christian nations, were the favorite forms in which objects of this kind were carved. These two were considered as especially efficacious in counteracting the dreaded power of the evil-eye. The inscription of the signet was not only a mark of the individuality of the owner, but indicated his piety by its formulas from the Koran, a love of ostentation too frequently a trait of the Arab character, and hardly reconcilable with the constantly inculcated spirit of religious humility. On the other hand, the more devout Moslems were always accustomed to remove their rings during the hour of prayer.

In none of the countries of Europe did the ceramic art attain such excellence in materials, design, and execution as in Mohammedan Spain. The conquest of Africa was the first signal for its development, and from that time its progress was steady and rapid. The fragments of porcelain dating from the khalifate, while showing Byzantine features, reveal the germs of that perfection of form and style which characterize the vases of the latest period, when the products of the potteries of Valencia and Malaga were exported to the utmost limits of the commercial world. Even the shattered specimens of unglazed clay that have come down to us are remarkable for the symmetry of their lines, and suggest the finest models of Grecian and Roman origin. The influence of Persia--whose colonists settled at Granada, and whose traditions exerted such a marked effect upon the civilization of the Peninsula--is plainly discernible in all the most elaborate efforts of the potter’s skill. Besides the island of Majorca, whose towns were noted for their ceramic wares, eight cities of Moorish Spain were engaged in this lucrative and artistic branch of industry. Of these Malaga ranked first; the extraordinary lustre by which her ceramics were distinguished defied imitation. The peculiarity of this pottery consisted in the brilliancy of the enamels, into which one or more metals were introduced in such a manner as not to interfere with its transparency and yet to retain all the beautiful reflection to be obtained from a metallic surface. This unique appearance has been supposed by some writers to have been produced by alloys of different kinds, laid in a stratum of almost inconceivable thinness upon the bisque. By this means a play of colors, iridescent in character, was obtained, whose brilliancy or softness was dependent upon the predominance of one or the other of the metals employed. The glaze was effected by the application of silicates. In this method of decoration silver and copper were most frequently used, along with those gorgeous colors whose harmonious adaptation to ornament of every description was so thoroughly understood by the Moorish artist. When the copper was united with silver the latter diminished the intensity of lustre, and produced the most superb effects. The combinations of different metals exhibited an indefinite variety of beautiful hues, whose exquisite delicacy could only be compared to the iris-like refraction of mother-of-pearl. This singular process imparted the double quality of transparency and distinctness of coloring in a very high degree, for, examined at an angle and in a strong light, the sheen of the metallic ingredients could be readily discerned, while at the same time the tints which formed the base of the ornamentation appeared with undiminished brilliancy through the shining and transparent enamel. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the finishing operations of these works of art demanded the greatest skill and experience.

The forms of the Hispano-Arab vases were suggestive of those of the classic amphoræ. Largest above the centre, and tapering rapidly towards the base, they were designed to be placed in metallic stands or upon hollow wooden pedestals. Their curves were exceedingly graceful, their decorations most profuse and elaborate. The handles were large and massive; in some instances covered with arabesques, in others representing hands grasping human eyes,--talismans against demoniac influence. The designs of the latter were often radically different in the same vase, yet they harmonized so perfectly with the work as a whole that the closest inspection was required to detect any want of resemblance. The colors most affected by the Arab potter were blue, white, black, brown, and yellow, and their dexterous and exquisite combinations afford convincing proof of his remarkable proficiency.

While this industry--probably originally derived from Assyria and Egypt--was improved by the Etruscans and brought to perfection by Greece and Rome, it disappeared with the influx of the barbarians, who trampled in the dust every token of European civilization. Revived during the early years of the khalifate, its history is a record of continued improvement.

The traditions of the Orient, the models of antiquity, the absorbing passion of the Persian for flowers, were all adopted and perpetuated in Mohammedan Spain. The beauties of the rose and the tulip were celebrated alike by the poets of Andalusia and Cashmere; and the national predilection for the blossom of the latter is recalled by its appearance upon the magnificent and unique vase of the Alhambra. The Moorish potters did not restrict themselves to the more brilliant colors; they possessed also neutral tints, and, by the skilful blending of both, succeeded in producing that perfect harmony of design and tone which is perhaps the greatest charm of their artistic efforts. They anticipated by three hundred years the methods rediscovered by Palissy, which wrought such a revolution in the manufacture of porcelain. The Moorish secret of metallic enamelling is now completely lost, along with the pre-eminence once enjoyed by Spain in every department of the ceramic art, and few specimens of pottery of undoubted Arabic origin remain. The royal ordinances published by Ferdinand IV. and Charles V., at the instance of the Inquisition, prohibited the possession of articles of Moorish manufacture, and were, no doubt, directly instrumental in causing the destruction of innumerable objects of priceless value, whose discovery might result in the confiscation of property and a lingering death by torture.

The mosaics which were such a prominent factor of the architectural decoration of the Mohammedan period constituted a notable branch of this important industry. The use of vitrified materials in building is an art of high antiquity. It was familiar to India, China, Assyria, long anterior to the dawn of historical narration. Glazed tiles were used in the palaces of Chaldea twenty-three hundred years before the Christian era. They covered the interior walls of the pyramid of Sakkarah, the oldest in Egypt. The fragmentary specimens found in the ruins of Assyrian cities are identical in color with those preferred by the Arabs. The Greeks employed them in the embellishment of the temple of Theseus. They were adopted by the Arabs in the construction of the tomb of Mohammed. Among the Moors of Spain, the process reached its greatest development, and the permanent character which distinguishes it has preserved for the admiration of modern times some of the most original artistic effects wrought by the prolific genius of Hispano-Arab civilization. Suggested by the Byzantine mosaics, from which, however, it differed essentially in material and design, it was never able to rival them in splendor, although in durability it far surpassed those rich and brilliant productions of the artists of Constantinople. The patterns of the latter were floral, those of the former geometrical. In the one, the effects were produced by colors seen through minute cubes of glass; in the other, by intricate combinations of opaque pieces of porcelain.

Like all articles manufactured in the Moorish potteries of Spain, mosaics were subjected to a long and tedious method of preparation. They underwent a threefold baking process before and after painting and when glazed. Metals were used in their composition, and in rare instances the peculiar iridescent decoration for which Malaga was renowned was employed. The evident costliness of this must have prevented its adoption, except in edifices of the greatest importance, for no example of it exists even in the Alhambra.

The fabrication of leathern hangings--whose surface exhibited the play of many hues brightened with gold and silver--was early one of the specialties of Cordovan industry, from which city it derived its name. Superb effects must have been produced by this curious tapestry, embossed and gilded, stamped and embroidered with graceful arabesques, and suspended between rich and capricious cornices of stucco and dadoes blazing with a score of colors in mosaic. These elegant hangings find no counterpart in modern decorative art save perhaps in the finest binding of a book. Goatskins formed the material, but the process by which they were prepared and ornamented passed away from the Peninsula with the expulsion of the Moriscoes, and its memory alone remains in the leather of Morocco, the most valuable known to commerce.

In the perfection of their textile fabrics, the Spanish Moors demonstrated their infinite superiority to all contemporaneous nations. In other kingdoms of Europe, silk was reserved for the use of royalty. Constantinople alone, by reason of its relations with the Orient, was able to provide a limited supply of this precious material. From Sicily the manufacture had been introduced into Spain, and, as already mentioned, was the most lucrative industry of Granada in the days of its greatest prosperity. After the eleventh century, in both those countries all classes used this fabric, elsewhere regarded as so valuable; the garments of men and women of the middle class of Granada were made of it, as were also the uniforms of the royal guards of Norman Palermo. The lightness and strength of these silks were remarkable, and their beautiful ornamentation displayed to the utmost the finished efforts of the designer and the artisan. The great Moslem banner captured at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and preserved in the Abbey of Las Huelgas near Burgos is an elegant example of the weaver’s art. Upon the ground of crimson silk appear inscriptions, medallions, and interlacing curves, interwoven in blue, white, green, and yellow. The harmonious arrangement of these colors denotes the exercise of the greatest taste and dexterity. Throughout the maze of graceful designs the name of God appears thousands of times, emblazoned in gold. In the patterns of the cloaks and robes of royal personages, mingled with brilliantly tinted arabesques, rich floral embroidery, and formulas from the Koran, appeared portraits of the owners, in the colors of nature, depicted with consummate skill. The tiraz, or tunic of Hischem II., preserved in the Museum of the Academy of History at Madrid, is the only specimen of this branch of the textile fabrics for which the khalifate of Spain was so celebrated now to be found in the world.

Modern science with all its improvements has never been able to equal in strength and delicacy of texture the products of the Moorish looms of the Peninsula. The extraordinary permanence of the dyes employed in these fabrics constitutes one of their best established claims to superior excellence. Of the few examples which have survived the revolutions of ages, little, if any, diminution of brilliancy in color is discernible. In this department of industry, also, Asiatic influence, transmitted successively through Byzantine and Sicilian channels, was disclosed in the manufactures of Mohammedan Spain, a country whose life and traditions have bequeathed to our times so many impressive reminiscences of the luxurious Orient. In numerous other fields of industry was the artistic and inventive spirit of the Hispano-Arab artisan developed,--in damascened treasure-chests of iron and steel, the complicated structure of whose locks is the wonder of the mechanic of to-day; in furniture, inlaid with precious and aromatic woods, and embellished with ebony, tortoise-shell, and pearl; in gem-incrusted caskets of ivory and onyx which Christian superstition has not deemed unworthy to enshrine the relics of her saints; in manuscripts, upon whose bindings fortunes were lavished, embossed with jewels, glittering with silver, lapis-lazuli, malachite, and gold.

The art of calligraphy, so greatly appreciated by the Arabs that it was styled The Golden Profession, and in which the Spanish Moslems acquired extraordinary proficiency, was developed, under the Khalifates of both the East and West, to a condition of almost absolute perfection. Before the invention of paper, their parchments exhibited a luxury which far surpassed that of the Byzantines, until that time the most renowned calligraphists in the world. The skins they used had a ground of gold or silver or were dyed of various colors,--scarlet, green, purple, blue, and black; their lustre was so great that they reflected light like the polished surface of a mirror. Their inks were also of many kinds; their brilliancy and durability exceeded those of any known to modern manufacture; the writing in distinctness, accuracy of alignment, and elegance--accomplishments in which the Mussulmans of Spain, who wrote a peculiarly graceful hand, excelled all the other nations of Islam--rivalled the most finished labors of the compositor; in epistles and documents destined for royalty the characters were written in liquid gold. The manuscripts were enriched with illuminations, an art which, carried into France and Italy, was subsequently borrowed by the mediæval monks, whose missals represent the highest, and, indeed, almost the sole, artistic manifestations of their time. The designs of the Arabs were not only geometric, floral, and grotesque, they included medallion portraits and representations of men and animals delineated with astonishing skill. These products of Moorish talent and ingenuity have, so far as is known at present, entirely perished; their curiously wrought borders, without the mysterious and unintelligible script which was supposed to contain formulas for the invocation of evil spirits, were alone sufficient to proscribe them.

The knowledge of the various mechanical processes referred to in this chapter--methods by which the artistic conceptions of Arabic genius were endowed with form and stability--has absolutely vanished. Not only is this the fact, but even all tangible evidences, upon whose existence was dependent the reputation for proverbial dexterity enjoyed by the Moorish artisan, have been destroyed, and we are forced to rely for their enumeration and character upon the vague and imperfect accounts of ill-informed and often unfriendly historians. In the eyes of the fanatic Castilian, everything derived from Moslem sources was necessarily tainted with heresy. The articles of luxury displayed in such profusion by the vanquished were indisputable proofs of mental superiority, and, as such, offensive to his pride. He denounced the splendidly bound and embossed volumes of the libraries as magic scrolls, whose contents should be regarded by good Christians with every demonstration of aversion and contempt. The mysterious and unfamiliar characters of the Arabic alphabet assumed in his superstitious eyes the symbols of witchcraft, sorcery, and incantation. He hastened to prohibit the use or preservation of the souvenirs of Moslem culture and power by sumptuary laws, whose provisions were enforced by every resource of original and ingenious cruelty. In the estimation of the clergy, Mohammedanism, blasphemy, and scientific knowledge were, to all intents and purposes, synonymous terms. Without taste to admire or capacity to emulate the achievements of Arabian skill, alike inestimable for their variety and excellence, they could at least annihilate the material evidences of that civilization whose monuments were at once an open challenge and a secret reproach. How thoroughly this congenial task was performed has been described in these pages. No people mentioned in history who rose to eminence in the various arts that contribute to national glory or domestic happiness have left behind them so few memorials upon which their title to superiority can be founded. But while the architectural remains have been defaced and destroyed, the libraries abandoned to the flames, the mechanical processes that gave to the world artistic results unrivalled in that age and unapproached in this, have been neglected and forgotten, priceless treasures, representing years of industry, broken to pieces for the sake of the materials of which they were composed, tens of thousands of skilful artisans exiled, plundered, murdered, there still remained in the public mind the impression insensibly produced by contact with a race of superior attainments, which, in its turn, was destined to form the germ of a new and far more widely extended civilization.

Africa, despite its innate barbarism, exercised some influence on the arts in Spain. As the Moslem conquest was planned in that country, so it subsequently became the avenue by which architectural and artistic ideas were transmitted to the people of the Peninsula, many of whom were natives of its soil. By the latter, still under the spell of Ommeyade culture and traditions, the crude, robust, and semi-barbaric conceptions of Mauritania were, however, soon refined and improved beyond recognition. The door of the Mosque of the Aljaferia at Saragossa, and an arch in the Cathedral of Tarragona, are almost the only remaining examples of the primitive African style. The Almohade princes made a more distinct and permanent impression on architecture than any sovereigns who had preceded them. They introduced many novel and striking features in exterior mural ornamentation. They were the first to make use of the raised terra-cotta work, the graceful festoons, the glazed bricks of many colors, which render the Giralda of Seville the most elaborate and majestic tower ever reared by the hand of an architect. While the largest and most superb, this magnificent minaret had yet many counterparts, in all but size, throughout the provinces of Moorish Spain. Those attached to the mosques of Toledo, Valencia, and Almeria were but little inferior to it in elegance. Their prominence, and the uses to which they were destined, were sufficient to insure their early demolition. The modified African style differed from that of the khalifate in that it was more florid than graceful, and exhibited a barbaric love of pomp rather than an inclination to observe the principles of good taste and just architectural proportion.

The artistic relics of a people are the surest criterion of its manual dexterity, its material progress, its intellectual culture. The paucity of souvenirs relating to the Hispano-Arab period has in certain quarters, as already mentioned, raised serious doubts as to the claim of that race to mediæval supremacy.