A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.--ST. SERGIUS, CONSTANTINOPLE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 75.--PLAN OF HAGIA SOPHIA.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 76.--SECTION OF HAGIA SOPHIA.]

+PLANS.+ The remains of Byzantine architecture are almost exclusively of churches and baptisteries, but the plans of these are exceedingly varied. The first radical departure from the basilica-type seems to have been the adoption of circular or polygonal plans, such as had usually served only for tombs and baptisteries. The Baptistery of St. John at Ravenna (early fifth century) is cla.s.sed by many authorities as a Byzantine monument. In the early years of the sixth century the adoption of this model had become quite general, and with it the development of domical design began to advance. The church of +St. Sergius+ at Constantinople (Fig. 74), originally joined to a short basilica dedicated to St. Bacchus (afterward destroyed by the Turks), as in the double church at Kelat Seman, was built about 520; that of +San Vitale+ at Ravenna was begun a few years later; both are domical churches on an octagonal plan, with an exterior aisle. Semicircular niches--four in St.

Sergius and eight in San Vitale--projecting into the aisle, enlarge somewhat the area of the central s.p.a.ce and give variety to the internal effect. The origin of this characteristic feature may be traced to the eight niches of the Pantheon, through such intermediate examples as the temple of Minerva Medica at Rome. The true pendentive does not appear in these two churches. Timidly employed up to that time in small structures, it received a remarkable development in the magnificent church of +Hagia Sophia+, built by Anthemius of Tralles and Isodorus of Miletus, under Justinian, 532-538 A.D. In the plan of this marvellous edifice (Fig. 75) the dome rests upon four mighty arches bounding a square, into two of which open the half-domes of semicircular apses.

These apses are penetrated and extended each by two smaller niches and a central arch, and the whole vast nave, measuring over 200 100 feet, is flanked by enormously wide aisles connecting at the front with a majestic narthex. Huge transverse b.u.t.tresses, as in the Basilica of Constantine (with whose structural design this building shows striking affinities), divide the aisles each into three sections. The plan suggests that of St. Sergius cut in two, with a lofty dome on pendentives over a square plan inserted between the halves. Thus was secured a n.o.ble and un.o.bstructed hall of unrivalled proportions and great beauty, covered by a combination of half-domes increasing in span and height as they lead up successively to the stupendous central vault, which rises 180 feet into the air and fitly crowns the whole. The imposing effect of this low-curved but loftily-poised dome, resting as it does upon a crown of windows, and so disposed that its summit is visible from every point of the nave (as may be easily seen from an examination of the section, Fig. 76), is not surpa.s.sed in any interior ever erected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 77.--INTERIOR OF HAGIA SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE.]

The two lateral arches under the dome are filled by clearstory walls pierced by twelve windows, and resting on arcades in two stories carried by magnificent columns taken from ancient ruins. These separate the nave from the side-aisles, which are in two stories forming galleries, and are vaulted with a remarkable variety of groined vaults. All the ma.s.ses are disposed with studied reference to the resistance required by the many and complex thrusts exerted by the dome and other vaults. That the earthquakes of one thousand three hundred and fifty years have not destroyed the church is the best evidence of the sufficiency of these precautions.

Not less remarkable than the n.o.ble planning and construction of this church was the treatment of scale and decoration in its interior design.

It was as conspicuously the masterpiece of Byzantine architecture as the Parthenon was of the cla.s.sic Greek. With little external beauty, it is internally one of the most perfectly composed and beautifully decorated halls of worship ever erected. Instead of the simplicity of the Pantheon it displays the complexity of an organism of admirably related parts.

The division of the interior height into two stories below the spring of the four arches, reduces the component parts of the design to moderate dimensions, so that the scale of the whole is more easily grasped and its vast size emphasized by the contrast. The walls are incrusted with precious marbles up to the spring of the vaulting; the capitals, spandrils, and soffits are richly and minutely carved with incised ornament, and all the vaults covered with splendid mosaics. Dimmed by the lapse of centuries and disfigured by the vandalism of the Moslems, this n.o.ble interior, by the harmony of its coloring and its impressive grandeur, is one of the masterpieces of all time (Fig. 77).

+LATER CHURCHES.+ After the sixth century no monuments were built at all rivalling in scale the creations of the former period. The later churches were, with few exceptions, relatively small and trivial.

Neither the plan nor the general aspect of Hagia Sophia seems to have been imitated in these later works. The crown of dome-windows was replaced by a cylindrical drum under the dome, which was usually of insignificant size. The exterior was treated more decoratively than before, by means of bands and incrustations of colored marble, or alternations of stone and brick; and internally mosaic continued to be executed with great skill and of great beauty until the tenth century, when the art rapidly declined. These later churches, of which a number were spared by the Turks, are, therefore, generally pleasing and elegant rather than striking or imposing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 78.--PLAN OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 79.--INTERIOR OF ST. MARK'S.]

+FOREIGN MONUMENTS.+ The influence of Byzantine art was wide-spread, both in Europe and Asia. The leading city of civilization through the Dark Ages, Constantinople influenced Italy through her political and commercial relations with Ravenna, Genoa, and Venice. The church of +St.

Mark+ in the latter city was one result of this influence (Figs. 78, 79). Begun in 1063 to replace an earlier church destroyed by fire, it received through several centuries additions not always Byzantine in character. Yet it was mainly the work of Byzantine builders, who copied most probably the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, built by Justinian. The picturesque but wholly unstructural use of columns in the entrance porches, the upper parts of the facade, the wooden cupolas over the five domes, and the pointed arches in the narthex, are deviations from Byzantine traditions dating in part from the later Middle Ages Nothing could well be conceived more irrational, from a structural point of view, than the acc.u.mulation of columns in the entrance-arches; but the total effect is so picturesque and so rich in color, that its architectural defects are easily overlooked. The external veneering of white and colored marble occurs rarely in the East, but became a favorite practice in Venice, where it continued in use for five hundred years. The interior of St. Mark's, in some respects better preserved than that of Hagia Sophia, is especially fine in color, though not equal in scale and grandeur to the latter church. With its five domes it has less unity of effect than Hagia Sophia, but more of the charm of picturesqueness, and its less brilliant and simpler lighting enhances the impressiveness of its more modest dimensions.

In Russia and Greece the Byzantine style has continued to be the official style of the Greek Church. The Russian monuments are for the most part of a somewhat fantastic aspect, the Muscovite taste having introduced many innovations in the form of bulbous domes and other eccentric details. In Greece there are few large churches, and some of the most interesting, like the Cathedral at Athens, are almost toy-like in their diminutiveness. On +Mt. Athos+ (Hagion Oros) is an ancient monastery which still retains its Byzantine character and traditions. In Armenia (as at Ani, Etchmiadzin, etc.) are also interesting examples of late Armeno-Byzantine architecture, showing applications to exterior carved detail of elaborate interlaced ornament looking like a re-echo of Celtic MSS. illumination, itself, no doubt, originating in Byzantine traditions. But the greatest and most prolific offspring of Byzantine architecture appeared after the fall of Constantinople (1453) in the new mosque-architecture of the victorious Turks.

+MONUMENTS.+ CONSTANTINOPLE: St. Sergius, 520; Hagia Sophia, 532-538; Holy Apostles by Justinian (demolished); Holy Peace (St.

Irene) originally by Constantine, rebuilt by Justinian, and again in 8th century by Leo the Isaurian; Hagia Theotokos, 12th century (?); Monetes Choras ("Kahire Djami"), 10th century; Pantokrator; "Fetiyeh Djami." Cisterns, especially the "Bin Bir Direk" (1,001 columns) and "Yere Batan Serai;" palaces, few vestiges except the great hall of the Blachernae palace. SALONICA: Churches--of Divine Wisdom ("Aya Sofia") St. Bardias, St. Elias. RAVENNA: San Vitale, 527-540. VENICE: St. Mark's, 977-1071; "Fondaco dei Turchi," now Civic Museum, 12th century. Other churches at Athens and Mt.

Athos; at Misitra, Myra, Ancyra, Ephesus, etc.; in Armenia at Ani, Dighour, Etchmiadzin, Kouthais, Pitzounda, Usunlar, etc.; tombs at Ani, Varzhahan, etc.; in Russia at Kieff (St. Basil, Cathedral), Kostroma, Moscow (a.s.sumption, St. Basil, Vasili Blaghennoi, etc.), Novgorod, Tchernigoff; at Kurtea Darghish in Wallachia, and many other places.

CHAPTER XII.

Sa.s.sANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE.

(ARABIAN, MORESQUE, PERSIAN, INDIAN, AND TURKISH.)

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Bourgoin, _Les Arts Arabes_. Coste, _Monuments du Caire_; _Monuments modernes de la Perse_. Cunningham, _Archaeological Survey of India_. Fergusson, _Indian and Eastern Architecture_. De Forest, _Indian Architecture and Ornament_.

Flandin et Coste, _Voyage en Perse_. Franz-Pasha, _Die Baukunst des Islam_. Gayet, _L'Art Arabe_; _L'Art Persan_. Girault de Prangey, _Essai sur l'architecture des Arabes en Espagne_, etc.

Goury and Jones, _The Alhambra_. Jacob, _Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details_. Le Bon, _La civilisation des Arabes_; _Les monuments de l'Inde_. Owen Jones, _Grammar of Ornament_.

Parvillee, _L'Architecture Ottomane_. Prisse d'Avennes, _L'Art Arabe_. Texier, _Description de l'Armenie, la Perse_, etc.

+GENERAL SURVEY.+ While the Byzantine Empire was at its zenith, the new faith of Islam was conquering Western Asia and the Mediterranean lands with a fiery rapidity, which is one of the marvels of history. The new architectural styles which grew up in the wake of these conquests, though differing widely in conception and detail in the several countries, were yet marked by common characteristics which set them quite apart from the contemporary Christian styles. The predominance of decorative over structural considerations, a predilection for minute surface-ornament, the absence of pictures and sculpture, are found alike in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Indian buildings, though in varying degree. These new styles, however, were almost entirely the handiwork of artisans belonging to the conquered races, and many traces of Byzantine, and even after the Crusades, of Norman and Gothic design, are recognizable in Moslem architecture. But the Orientalism of the conquerors and their common faith, tinged with the poetry and philosophic mysticism of the Arab, stamped these works of Copts, Syrians, and Greeks with an unmistakable character of their own, neither Byzantine nor Early Christian.

+ARABIC ARCHITECTURE.+ In the building of mosques and tombs, especially at Cairo, this architecture reached a remarkable degree of decorative elegance, and sometimes of dignity. It developed slowly, the Arabs not being at the outset a race of builders. The early monuments of Syria and Egypt were insignificant, and the sacred _Kaabah_ at Mecca and the mosque at Medina hardly deserve to be called architectural monuments at all. The most important early works were the mosques of +'Amrou+ at Cairo (642, rebuilt and enlarged early in the eighth century), of +El Aksah+ on the Temple platform at Jerusalem (691, by Abd-el-Melek), and of +El Walid+ at Damascus (705-732, recently seriously injured by fire).

All these were simple one-storied structures, with flat wooden roofs carried on parallel ranges of columns supporting pointed arches, the arcades either closing one side of a square court, or surrounding it completely. The long perspectives of the aisles and the minute decoration of the archivolts and ceilings alone gave them architectural character. The beautiful +Dome of the Rock+ (Kubbet-es-Sakhrah, miscalled the Mosque of Omar) on the Temple platform at Jerusalem is either a remodelled Constantinian edifice, or in large part composed of the materials of one (see p. 116).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 80.--MOSQUE OF SULTAN Ha.s.sAN, CAIRO: SANCTUARY.

a, _Mihrab_, b, _Mimber_.]

The splendid mosque of +Ibn Touloun+ (876-885) was built on the same plan as that of Amrou, but with cantoned piers instead of columns and a corresponding increase in variety of perspective and richness of effect.

With the incoming of the Fatimite dynasty, however, and the foundation of the present city of Cairo (971), vaulting began to take the place of wooden ceilings, and then appeared the germs of those extraordinary applications of geometry to decorative design which were henceforth to be the most striking feature of Arabic ornament. Under the Ayub dynasty, which began with Salah-ed-din (Saladin) in 1172, these elements, of which the great +Barkouk+ mosque (1149) is the most imposing early example, developed slowly in the domical tombs of the _Karafah_ at Cairo, and prepared the way for the increasing richness and splendor of a long series of mosques, among which those of +Kalaoun+ (1284-1318), +Sultan Ha.s.san+ (1356), +El Mu'ayyad+ (1415), and +Kaid Bey+ (1463), were the most conspicuous examples (Fig. 80). They mark, indeed, successive advances in complexity of planning, ingenuity of construction, and elegance of decoration. Together they const.i.tute an epoch in Arabic architecture, which coincides closely with the development of Gothic vaulted architecture in Europe, both in the stages and the duration of its advances.

The mosques of these three centuries are, like the mediaeval monasteries, impressive aggregations of buildings of various sorts about a central court of ablutions. The tomb of the founder, residences for the _imams_, or priests, schools (_madra.s.sah_), and hospitals (_maristan_) rival in importance the prayer-chamber. This last is, however, the real focus of interest and splendor; in some cases, as in Sultan Ha.s.san, it is a simple barrel-vaulted chamber open to the court; in others an oblong arcaded hall with many small domes; or again, a square hall covered with a high pointed dome on pendentives of intricately beautiful stalact.i.te-work (see below). The ceremonial requirements of the mosque were simple. The-court must have its fountain of ablutions in the centre. The prayer-hall, or mosque proper, must have its _mihrab_, or niche, to indicate the _kibleh_, the direction of Mecca; and its _mimber_, or high, slender pulpit for the reading of the Koran. These were the only absolutely indispensable features of a mosque, but as early as the ninth century the _minaret_ was added, from which the call to prayer could be sounded over the city by the _mueddin_. Not until the Ayubite period, however, did it begin to a.s.sume those forms of varied and picturesque grace which lend to Cairo so much of its architectural charm.

+ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS.+ While Arabic architecture, in Syria and Egypt alike, possesses more decorative than constructive originality, the beautiful forms of its domes, pendentives, and minarets, the simple majesty of the great pointed barrel-vaults of the Ha.s.san mosque and similar monuments, and the graceful lines of the universally used pointed arch, prove the Coptic builders and their later Arabic successors to have been architects of great ability. The Arabic domes, as seen both in the mosques and in the remarkable group of tombs commonly called "tombs of the Khalifs," are peculiar not only in their pointed outlines and their rich external decoration of interlaced geometric motives, but still more in the external and internal treatment of the pendentives, exquisitely decorated with stalact.i.te ornament. This ornament, derived, no doubt, from a combination of minute corbels with rows of small niches, and presumably of Persian origin, was finally developed into a system of extraordinary intricacy, applicable alike to the topping of a niche or panel, as in the great doorways of the mosques, and to the bracketing out of minaret galleries (Figs. 81, 82).

Its applications show a bewildering variety of forms and an extraordinary apt.i.tude for intricate geometrical design.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 81.--MOSQUE OF KAiD BEY, CAIRO]

+DECORATION.+ Geometry, indeed, vied with the love of color in its hold on the Arabic taste. Ceiling-beams were carved into highly ornamental forms before receiving their rich color-decoration of red, green, blue, and gold. The doors and the _mimber_ were framed in geometric patterns with slender intersecting bars forming complicated star-panelling. The voussoirs of arches were cut into curious interlocking forms; doorways and niches were covered with stalact.i.te corbelling, and pavements and wall-incrustations, whether of marble or tiling, combined brilliancy and harmony of color with the perplexing beauty of interlaced star-and-polygon patterns of marvellous intricacy. Stained gla.s.s added to the interior color-effect, the patterns being perforated in plaster, with a bit of colored gla.s.s set into each perforation--a device not very durable, perhaps, but singularly decorative.

+OTHER WORKS.+ Few of the mediaeval Arabic palaces have remained to our time. That they were adorned with a splendid prodigality appears from contemporary accounts. This splendor was internal rather than external; the palace, like all the larger and richer dwellings in the East, surrounded one or more courts, and presented externally an almost unbroken wall. The fountain in the chief court, the _diwan_ (a great, vaulted reception-chamber opening upon the court and raised slightly above it), the _dar_, or men's court, rigidly separated from the _hareem_ for the women, were and are universal elements in these great dwellings. The more common city-houses show as their most striking features successively corbelled-out stories and broad wooden eaves, with lattice-screens covering single windows, or almost a whole facade, composed of turned work (_mashrabiyya_), in designs of great beauty.

The fountains, gates, and minor works of the Arabs display the same beauty in decoration and color, the same general forms and details which characterize the larger works, but it is impossible here to particularize further with regard to them.

+MORESQUE.+ Elsewhere in Northern Africa the Arabs produced no such important works as in Egypt, nor is the architecture of the other Moslem states so well preserved or so well known. Constructive design would appear to have been there even more completely subordinated to decoration; tiling and plaster-relief took the place of more architectural elements and materials, while horseshoe and cusped arches were subst.i.tuted for the simpler and more architectural pointed arch (Fig. 82). The courts of palaces and public buildings were surrounded by ranges of horseshoe arches on slender columns; these last being provided with capitals of a form rarely seen in Cairo. Towers were built of much more ma.s.sive design than the Cairo minarets, usually with a square, almost solid shaft and a more open lantern at the top, sometimes in several diminishing stories.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 82.--MOORISH DETAIL, ALHAMBRA.

_Showing stalact.i.te and perforated work, Moorish cusped arch, Hispano-Moresque capitals, and decorative inscriptions._]

+HISPANO-MORESQUE.+ The most splendid phase of this branch of Arabic architecture is found not in Africa but in Spain, which was overrun in 710-713 by the Moors, who established there the independent Khalifate of Cordova. This was later split up into petty kingdoms, of which the most important were Granada, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia. This dismemberment of the Khalifate led in time to the loss of these cities, which were one by one recovered by the Christians during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the capture of Granada, in 1492, finally destroying the Moorish rule.

The dominion of the Moors in Spain was marked by a high civilization and an extraordinary activity in building. The style they introduced became the national style in the regions they occupied, and even after the expulsion of the Moors was used in buildings erected by Christians and by Jews. The "House of Pilate," at Seville, is an example of this, and the general use of the Moorish style in Jewish synagogues, down to our own day, both in Spain and abroad, originated in the erection of synagogues for the Jews in Spain by Moorish artisans and in Moorish style, both during and after the period of Moslem supremacy.

Besides innumerable mosques, castles, bridges, aqueducts, gates, and fountains, the Moors erected several monuments of remarkable size and magnificence. Specially worthy of notice among them are the Great Mosque at Cordova, the Alcazars of Seville and Malaga, the Giralda at Seville, and the Alhambra at Granada.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 83.--INTERIOR OF THE GREAT MOSQUE AT CORDOVA.]

The +Mosque at Cordova+, begun in 786 by 'Abd-er-Rahman, enlarged in 876, and again by El Mansour in 976, is a vast arcaded hall 375 feet 420 feet in extent, but only 30 feet high (Fig. 83). The rich wooden ceiling rests upon seventeen rows of thirty to thirty-three columns each, and two intersecting rows of piers, all carrying horseshoe arches in two superposed ranges, a large portion of those about the sanctuary being cusped, the others plain, except for the alternation of color in the voussoirs. The _mihrab_ niche is particularly rich in its minutely carved incrustations and mosaics, and a dome ingeniously formed by intersecting ribs covers the sanctuary before it. This form of dome occurs frequently in Spain.