Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/568

552 552 SARACENIC AJRCHITECTUIiE. Pakt IIL Mosque at Tabreez. ft. to 1 in. Scale 100 was apparently to signalize the conversion that he began this mosque; but whether it Avas finished by him or his successors is not evident. As will be seen by the plan, it is not large, being only about 150 ft. l)y 120, exclusive of the tomb in the rear, which, a.? a Tartar, it was impos- sible he could dispense with. In plan it differs also considerably from those previously illustrated, being in reality a copy of a Byzantine church, carried out with the details of the 13th century — a fact Avhich confirms the be- lief that the Persians before this age were not a mosque-building people. In this mosque the mode of decoration is what principally deserves attention ; the Avhole building, both externally and internally, being covered with a perfect mosaic of glazed bricks of very brilliant colors, and wrought into the most intricate patterns, and Mdth all the elegance for which the Persians were in all ages remarkable. Europe possesses no specimen of any style of ornamentation com- parable with tliis. The painted plaster of the Alhambra is infinitely inferior, and even the mosaic painted glass of our cathedrals is a very partial and incomplete ornament com])ared with the brilliancy of a design pervading the wliole building, and entirely carried out in the same style. From the time, however, of the oldest Assyrian palaces to the present day color has been in that country a more essential element of architectural magnificence than form ; and here, at least, we may judge of what the halls of Nineveh and Persepolis once were when adorned with colors in the same manner as this now ruined mosque of the Tartars. Though of course impossible adequately to represent this building in a woodcut, the view ^ (Woodcut No. 986) of its principal portal will give some idea of the form of the mosque, and introduce the reader to a new mode of giving expression to portals, which after the date of this building is nenrlv universal in the East. The entrance-door is small, but coA'^ered by a semi-dome of considerable magnitude, giving it all the grandeur of a portal as large as the main aisle of the building. The Gothic architects attempted something of this sort by making the outer openings of their doors considerably larger than the inner; in other words, by "splaying" widely the jambs of ' Both the plan and view are taken from Baron Texier's "Arinenie et la Perse," which gives also several colored plates of the mosaic decorations, from which their beauty of detail may be judged, though not the effect of the whole.