An Architect's Note-Book in Spain: principally illustrating the domestic architecture of that country.Wyatt, M. Digby (Matthew Digby), Sir
History
An Architect's Note-Book in Spain: principally illustrating the domestic architecture of that country.
Wyatt, M. Digby (Matthew Digby), Sir
Architecture -- Spain
THE habit of the Moors was almost universally to make their exterior
architecture plain, and to reserve richness and elaboration for the
interiors of their houses. The fact that what is commonly internal
architecture has been used by Moorish workmen on the external façade of
the little house, which forms the subject of this fifty-second sketch,
would be sufficient of itself to prove that it had not been executed for
a Moor, even if the Gothic mouldings and ornaments of the buttresses,
imposts, cornices, and string courses failed to assert the Christianity
of those for whom the house may have been built. The date of its
construction, judging from style, was probably about the middle of the
fifteenth century, at which period, in Spain, Renaissance features had
in nowise affected the integrity of either Gothic or Moorish
architecture. In this case all the mason's work is Gothic, and all the
stucco-work is Moorish; and this distinction of style, according to the
technical mode of construction, is not an uncommon feature of Mudejar
work. It was not only in stucco that the traditions of Moorish
art-workmanship enriched all Spain, since both in metal-work and
wood-work, the Moors continued to be employed long after their
subjugation, preserving very many of their old and excellent types of
form throughout many phases of transition. To this subject I may have
occasion to recur. I was myself fortunate enough to meet with a
beautiful little walnut-wood box, covered with Mudejar ornament, in the
midst of which a Moorish workman of the sixteenth century had carved the
I.H.S. of Christianity, and the sword of Sant' Iago.
[Illustration: PLATE 53
SEVILLE FONDA DE MADRID
MDW 1869]
PLATE LIII.
_SEVILLE._
MUDEJAR WINDOW IN THE FONDA DE MADRID.
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