The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and SpainTaylor, Bayard
History
The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
Taylor, Bayard
Middle East -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
The other noted mosques of Constantinople are the _Yeni Djami,_ or Mosque
of the Sultana Valide, on the shore of the Golden Horn, at the end of the
bridge to Galata; that of Sultan Bajazet; of Mahomet II., the Conqueror,
and of his son, Suleyman the Magnificent, whose superb mosque well
deserves this title. I regret exceedingly that our time did not allow us
to view the interior, for outwardly it not only surpasses St. Sophia, and
all other mosques in the city, but is undoubtedly one of the purest
specimens of Oriental architecture extant. It stands on a broad terrace,
on one of the seven hills of Stamboul, and its exquisitely proportioned
domes and minarets shine as if crystalized in the blue of the air. It is a
type of Oriental, as the Parthenon is of Grecian, and the Cologne
Cathedral of Gothic art. As I saw it the other night, lit by the flames of
a conflagration, standing out red and clear against the darkness, I felt
inclined to place it on a level with either of those renowned structures.
It is a product of the rich fancy of the East, splendidly ornate, and not
without a high degree of symmetry--yet here the symmetry is that of
ornament alone, and not the pure, absolute proportion of forms, which we
find in Grecian Art. It requires a certain degree of enthusiasm--nay, a
slight inebriation of the imaginative faculties--in order to feel the
sentiment of this Oriental Architecture. If I rightly express all that it
says to me, I touch the verge of rapsody. The East, in almost all its
aspects, is so essentially poetic, that a true picture of it must be
poetic in spirit, if not in form.
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