16 ASIAN ART Travel


Te Court of Lions in the Al Hambra AL-ANDALUS


Romans, Visigoths and the Islamic Moors who have


A left their rich


cultural legacies on the landscape of Spain. Te Moors, part of the Umayyad dynasty, were mainly


a


mixed race of Berbers and Arabs who crossed into Spain via Gibralta from North Africa in 711, and in three years, with only a small army, completed an invasion of most of Christian Spain. Only the far north resisted and the newly conquered area that became Al-Andalus. Tis Islamic presence in Spain under the Caliphate spanned from the 8th to the end of the 15th century, exerting a profound cultural influence on the region, which is still visible today. Te was a great explosion of art, culture and science, something that had not been seen in Europe on this scale before. First great flowering was in Cordoba, which by the late 8th century, had become the brightest, wealthiest, and busiest city in Europe. Tis change was the cause of one man – Abd al-Rahman I, an exile from Damascus. His family were victims of the civil war between the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties during the Abbasid Revolution (748-750) for the control of Damascus. Trown into exile, after many years of travelling and quests for power, he eventually adopted Cordoba as his new home and became the first Caliph of Al- Andalus – establishing a new Umayyad dynasty in Spain. Here, Abd al-Rahman attempted


to recreated the splendours of Damascus in Spain – a paradise on Earth. Many philosophers, scientists


ndalusia’s complex history comprises successive invasions from the Phoenicians,


Te Giralda tower, the only surviving building from the original grand mosque, now part of Seville’s cathedral


Medina Azahara in Cordoba


and artists began to flock to Cordoba as a seat of great learning – creating a cultural


revolution. During the


golden age in 9th and 10th centuries, the three religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism lived in relative harmony. In Cordoba, the conquering Moors made no effort to make the Christians and Jews to convert to Islam. For over 200 years, the religions tolerated each other creating a unique culture – Andalusi – which was tolerant society that adopted the customs, food, dress and culture of the Umayyad dynasty. Perhaps the most imposing symbol remaining of this


great cultural


flowering is the great mosque of Cordoba – when work began on this building Islam was only a century old – making the Mezquita one of the first mosques ever built. Tis great mosque has columns that stretch as far as the eye can see, endlessly repeating themselves. It must have been an uplifting and awe-inspiring experience for the worshipper, where the design is uniform and where everyone could feel equal. It contains the Moorish characteristics of modified horseshoe arches, elaborate stucco work and the use of calligraphy as part of the decoration, together with the richly ornamented mihrab, which would have originally held a gilt copy of the Qur’an, serving as the focal point of prayer. Te arches are in red and white, the colours of the Abd Rahman dynasty. More than 850 columns of granite, jasper and marble support the roof creating an effect of a forest or grove, with the rows of the variegated columns and arches believed evoking date palms, invoking a meditative,


expansive state for Te 14th-century Mudejar Palace built by Pedro the Cruel in the Alcazar in Seville ASIAN ART SUMMER QUARTER 2017 Courtyard of the Myrtles, Al Hambra


prayer. However, even though it is the world’s third largest mosque, in the 16th century a cathedral was built inside and the mosque was reconsecrated to Christianity. Long after the fall of the Moors, the Christian rulers demolished the central columns of the mosque and built the elaborate cathedral you see today in its midst. It is said that the Emperor Charles V, who had ordered


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