Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/505

Rh SARACENIC.] ARCHITECTURE 447 the colonnades were made of extra depth. In the centre of the court was a fountain, just as in the atrium of the Christian basilicas ; and conspicuously, sometimes at each corner of the mosque, was placed a minaret. The size of the whole and the number and. richness of the columns might Fio. 49. Interior view of Kaid Bay Mosque. From Coste. vary, but the general arrangement was nearly always the same, the really essential parts being the prayer niche, the pulpit, the fountain, some protection against the burning noonday heat, and some elevated place from which the priest could call to prayers. A remarkable exception to the ordinary plan occurs in the celebrated Mosque Soultan Hassan at Cairo, which is in the form of a cross, the four arms being arched over, whilst the centre is left open and contains the usual fountain. Closely connected with the mosque is, often, the tomb of its founder. This is nearly always covered with a dome which, when on a large scale, was almost invariably a sign of a sepulchral edifice. In these mosques and tombs we meet with general forms and details unknown elsewhere in Western art at the time of their erection. First of all we meet with the pointed arch. Very early in the style, and long before the era of Pointed architecture, this arch was used by the Saracens. But peculiar to their art are the beautiful minarets. Springing from a square base, they were gradually brought to an octagon or a round with a corbelled gallery at every change, and each part ornamented by diaper work of the most elaborate kind. The domes are equally varied and beautiful. They spring from a square base, and are gathered into the usual circular form in the most graceful manner. Quite opposite also to the Western mode, the external surfaces of the domes are sometimes decorated with diaper or other work, beautiful in. itself and equally so in its application, and never is the Saracenic dome concealed outside by a conical roof. The want of a crowning cornice to the long lines of the walls was to some extent supplied by a peculiarly bold crest ornament often filled in with rich scroll or other work. A variety of these adorns many of the mediaeval palaces of Venice. The ornamentation was almost entirely conventional, as the strict rules of the Koran forbade the copying of any natural objects. That this rule was not always followed may be seen in the Alhambra; but it, nevertheless, -was in general attended to, and wonderfully beautiful were the results of this absence of all copying. Intricate scrollwork, flat in appearance on the surface, but really in various planes and intertwining, formed the usual basis. And from the scrolls came a sort of leafwork certainly like nothing in nature, but most graceful and varied in its elegant curves. The whole is utterly conventional as entirely the creation of the artist s mind as the most conventional work of a Gothic architect. The capitals of the columns were usually some adaptation of the classic. But in Spain, as specially seen in the Alhambra, they were of quite an original type, somewhat like that which we have described as being the germ of the Ionic, but with long leaves under the block, tied together with a band at the top of the shaft. One of the ornaments peculiar to the Saracens, and constantly used by them, was the honey-comb by which they brought the square base, which they almost always used on plan, into the cir- mf _ - - &amp;gt; cular dome or niche-head. It was, in fact, the Saracenic pendentive. In its simplest form it occurs very early in the style, as, e.g., at the Mosque of Tooloon at Cairo, and was composed of a series of small niches, the pointed head of each of which bent forward at the top and formed the springing point of two others. The repetition of a few rows of this pro duced a pendentive in which it is impossible to detect any harsh point of junction between the square base and the circular finish. Sometimes this honey-comb work was ex ceedingly intricate, and formed niche-heads, roofs, &c. Good examples of this occurs at the Zisa, Palermo, and at the Alhambra. The entrance doorways were often grandly composed in a very high square recess; but the Saracens were as careful as the Gothic archi tects not to dwarf the size of the interior of their buildings by making the Fia. 50. Capital and Springing of actual openings large, and Arch from the Hal1 of Abencer- ,1 ,1 i i i races. Alhambra. thus the recess was brought down in height by elaborate work in the upper part, and the actual doorway thus reduced to just the size required for use. The windows were, of necessity, small, in order to guard against the heat ; they were fitted up with thick bars of marble or of plaster, in elaborate diaper patterns;