Their Syncretism, The Result Of Chance And Precipitancy, Of
Extravagance And Incuriousness, Fell Under Eyes Too Ignorant To Be Hurt
By The Hybrid Irregularity:
It was perpetuated in the so-called
Saracenic style, a plagiarism from the Byzantine,[FN#2] and it was
Reiterated in the Gothic, an offshoot from the Saracenic.[FN#3] This
fact accounts in the Gothic style for its manifold incongruities of
architecture, and for the phenomenon,-not solely attributable to the
buildings
[p.91]having been erected piecemeal,-of its most classic period being
that of its greatest irregularity.
Such "architectural lawlessness," such disregard for symmetry,-the
result, I believe, of an imperfect "amalgamation and enrichment,"-may
doubtless be defended upon the grounds both of cause and of effect.
Architecture is of the imitative arts, and Nature, the Myriomorphous,
everywhere delighting in variety, appears to abhor nothing so much as
perfect similarity and precise uniformity. To copy her exactly we must
therefore seek that general analogy compatible with individual variety;
in fact, we should avoid the over-display of order and regularity. And
again, it may be asserted that, however incongruous these disorderly
forms may appear to the conventional eye, we find it easy to surmount
our first antipathy. Perhaps we end in admiring them the more, as we
love those faces in which irregularity of feature is compensated for by
diversity and piquancy of expression.
There is nothing, I believe, new in the Arab Mosque; it is an
unconscious revival of the forms used from the earliest ages to denote
by symbolism the worship of the generative and the creative gods. The
reader will excuse me if I only glance at a subject of which the
investigation would require a volume, and which, discussed at greater
length, would be out of place in such a narrative as this.
The first Mosque in Al-Islam was erected by Mohammed at Kuba, near
Al-Madinah: shortly afterwards, when he entered Meccah as a conqueror,
he destroyed the three hundred and sixty idols of the Arab Pantheon,
and thus purified that venerable building from its abominations. He had
probably observed in Syrian Bostra the two forms appropriated by the
Christians to their places of worship, the cross and the
parallelogramic Basilica; he therefore preferred for the prayers of the
"Saving Faith" a square,-some authors say, with, others
[p.92]without, a cloister. At length in the reign of Al-Walid (A.H. 90)
the cupola, the niche, and the minaret made their appearance; and what
is called the Saracenic style became for ever the order of the Moslem
world.
The Hindus I believe to have been the first who symbolised by an
equilateral triangle their peculiar cult, the Yoni-Linga: in their
temple architecture, it became either a conoid or a perfect pyramid.
Egypt denoted it by the obelisk, peculiar to that country; and the form
appeared in different parts of the world: thus in England it was a mere
upright stone, and in Ireland a round tower. This we might expect to
see. D'Hancarville and Brotier have successfully traced the worship
itself, in its different modifications, to all people: the symbol would
therefore be found everywhere. The old Arab minaret is a plain
cylindrical or polygonal tower, without balcony or stages, widely
different from the Turkish, modern Egyptian, and Hijazi combinations of
tube and prism, happily compared by a French traveller to "une
chandelle coiffee d'un eteignoir." And finally the ancient minaret,
made solid as all Gothic architecture is, and provided with a belfry,
became the spire and steeple of our ancestors.
>From time immemorial, in hot and rainy lands, a hypaethral court,
either round or square, surrounded by a covered portico, was used for
the double purpose of church and mart,-a place where God and Mammon
were worshipped turn by turn. In some places we find rings of stones,
like the Persian Pyroetheia; in others, circular concave buildings
representing the vault of heaven, where Fire, the divine symbol, was
worshipped; and in Arabia, columnar aisles, which, surmounted by the
splendid blue vault, resemble the palm-grove. The Greeks adopted this
idea in the fanes of Creator Bacchus; and at Pozzuoli, near Naples, it
may be seen in the building vulgarly called the Temple of Serapis. It
was equally well known
[p.93]to the Kelts: in some places the Temenos was a circle, in others
a quadrangle. And such to the present day is the Mosque of Al-Islam.
Even the Riwak or porches surrounding the area in the Mosque are
revivals of older forms. "The range of square buildings which enclose
the temple of Serapis are not, properly speaking, parts of the fane,
but apartments of the priests, places for victims, and sacred utensils,
and chapels dedicated to subordinate deities, introduced by a more
complicated and corrupt worship, and probably unknown to the founders
of the original edifice." The cloisters in the Mosque became cells,
used as lecture rooms, and stores for books bequeathed to the college.
They are unequal, because some are required to be of larger, others to
be of smaller, dimensions. The same reason causes difference of size
when the building is distributed into four hyposteles opening upon the
area: the porch in the direction of the Ka'abah, where worshippers
mostly congregate, demands greater depth than the other three. The
wings were not unfrequently made unequal, either from want of building
materials, or because the same extent of accommodation was not required
in both. The columns were of different substances; some of handsome
marble, others of rough stone meanly plastered over, with dissimilar
capitals, vulgarly cut shafts of various sizes; here with a pediment,
there without, now turned upside down, then joined together by halves
in the centre, and almost invariably nescient of intercolumnar rule.
This is the result of Byzantine syncretism, carelessly and ignorantly
grafted upon Arab ideas of the natural and the sublime. Loving and
admiring the great, or rather the big in plan,[FN#4]} they care
[p.94]little for the execution of mere details, and they have not the
acumen to discern the effect which clumsy workmanship, crooked lines,
and visible joints,-parts apparently insignificant,-exercise upon the
whole of an edifice.
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