George Edmund Street

“ For here in the twelfth century we find men executing work which, both in design and execution, is so immeasurably in advance of anything that we ever see done now, that it seems almost vain to hope for a revival of the old spirit in our own days: vain it might be in any age to hope for better work, but more than vain in this day, if the flimsy conceit and impudent self-assertion which characterize so much modern (so-called) Gothic is still to be tolerated! ”

“ Sculpture in moderation is above everything beautiful. Sculpture in excess is very offensive. These Spanish churches teach us this most unmistakably if they teach us anything at all; and as the main object of the study of ancient art—the main object of those who wish to “stand in the old ways where is the truth”—is to derive lessons for the present and future from the practice of the past, I am sure that, in applying the results of my study of Spanish art in the warning which I here very gravely give, I am only doing that which as an artist I am bound to do, if I care at all for my art. ”

“ Even finer is it as one drives on through the suburb and first finds oneself in presence of the grand old Roman aqueduct, which, still perfect and still in use, spans with its magnificent ranges of arch upon arch the valley which separates the city rock from the hills beyond. Its base is girt closely round by houses and the diligence road passes under one of its arches, so that the enormous scale upon which it is built is thoroughly appreciated, and it is quite impossible not to admire the extreme simplicity and grandeur of the work. ”

“ In England for some years we have lived in the centre of a church-building movement as active and hearty perhaps as any ever yet known; our advantages, therefore, as compared with those possessed by foreigners generally, are enormous; whilst perhaps, on the other hand, in no country has so little been done as in Spain during the present century. Yet in England few of us would like to think of pulling down and reconstructing one side of a cathedral, and few would doubt that art and history would lose much in the process, even in the hands of the most able and conservative architect. ”

“ The plain between Leon and Valladolid is most uninteresting; and the whole journey from the coast of Galicia to the last-named city is one of the most wearisome I ever undertook. The occasional beauty of the scenery,—and on this road it is oftentimes very beautiful,—does not prevent one’s feeling rather acutely a diligence journey of sixty-six hours with few and short pauses for meals; and the only solace—if solace it is—one has, is that the adalantero or postilion, who has to ride the whole distance, is in infinitely worse case than oneself! ”

“ The fittings of the Coro are all Renaissance, and there is a screen of the same age across the nave on its western side. To the east is the usual metal Reja, and low rails enclosing the passage from the Coro to the Capilla mayor. A flight of seven steps in front of the altar, the magnificent colour of its Retablo, and the contrast of the extremely light choir and the almost windowless aisles and chapels round it, make the pictorial effects here extremely fine; and they are heightened by a good deal of stained glass, which, though of late date, has some fine rich colour. ”

“ Most of us are conscious how much good sculpture adds to the interest of good architecture. Usually, however, we spread our modern sculpture too lavishly in all directions if we have the money to spend. But even in this there may be too much of a good thing; the mind and eye become satiated, and sicken; and not half the real pleasure is felt in seeing some modern works that would be if the work had been somewhat less lavishly applied, somewhat more thoughtfully, or as at Santiago, in one spot, leaving the whole of the rest of the church in its stern, rude simplicity. ”

“ But the detail throughout is of the very poorest kind, fairly Gothic in character inside, but almost Renaissance outside, and everywhere wanting in vigour and effect. Nothing can be much worse than the treatment of the doorways and windows, and—to take one portion—the south transept façade is spotted all over with niches, crockets, and pedestals in the most childish way; whilst every spandrel has a head looking out of a circle, reminding one forcibly of the old application of a horse-collar, and, in fact, the men were foolish who repeated, usque ad nauseam, so stale and unprofitable an idea! ”

“ It is quite worth while to ascend the hill, if only for the view. San Esteban, shorn as it is—like all Spanish churches—of more than half its old external features, with pinnacles nipped off, parapets destroyed, windows blocked up, and roofs reduced from their old steep pitch to the uniform rough, ragged, and ruinous-looking flat of pantiles, which is universal here, forms, nevertheless, a good foreground for the fine view of the cathedral below it and the other points of interest in the town beyond. ”

“ MADRID—ALCALÁ—GUADALAJARA—SIGÜENZA. ON my first journey to Madrid I travelled most of the way from Valladolid by diligence, and though the way was long and weary, the passage of the Sierra de Guadarrama was very fine, and I remember few pictures more lovely than that which we saw at sunrise, as we climbed the northern side of the mountains amid groups of stone-pines; whilst the steep descent to the village of Guadarrama, on the south, with a slight distant view of Madrid, and a near view of the Escorial, was quite a thing to be remembered with pleasure. ”

“ The whole composition of this lantern is Gothic and picturesque; yet there is scarce a portion of it which does not show a most strange mixture of Pagan and Gothic detail. The piers which support it are huge, ungainly cylinders, covered with carving in low relief, and everywhere there is that combination of heaviness of parts and intricacy of detail, which in all ages marks the inferior artist. ”

“ He was no mean artist who made the first design for Barcelona Cathedral, who completed the chevet of Gerona, or who designed the steeple at Lérida, or the cloisters of Burgos, Leon, or Veruela. At this time indeed art was cosmopolitan, and all Europe seems to have been possessed with the same love for geometrical traceries, for crockets, for thin delicate mouldings, and for sharp naturalesque foliage, so that no country presents anything which is absolutely new, or unlike what may be seen to some extent elsewhere. ”

“ Rarely as I trouble my reader with any reference to Renaissance works, I must here in justice say that the great tomb of Don Juan, the son of Ferdinand and Isabella, which occupies the floor below the altar, is one of the most tender, fine, and graceful works I have ever seen, and worthy of any school of architecture. The recumbent effigy, in particular, is as dignified, graceful, and religious as it well could be, and in no respect unworthy of a good Gothic artist. ”

“ The value of contrast—a treasure in the hands of the real artist—is here consciously and most artistically exhibited; and it was no mean artist who could venture to make so unsparing a use of architectural ornamentation without producing any sense of surfeit on those who look at his work even with the most critical eyes.
I have seldom seen any central lantern more thoroughly good and effective from every point of view than this is: it seems indeed to solve, better than the lantern of any church I have yet seen elsewhere, the question of the introduction of the dome to Gothic churches. ”

“ The north transept is now the least altered part of the church, and in the extreme simplicity of its bold buttresses, the refined beauty of its sculptured doorway, and the well-proportioned triplet which fills the upper part of the wall, it recalls to mind an English building of the thirteenth century. Unfortunately the gable has been destroyed, and the walls and buttresses are now finished with the straight line of the eaves. Almost the only peculiarity in the detail here is the wide, external splay of the windows between the glass and the jamb-shafts in the centre of the monials. ”

“ If these questions cannot be answered in our favour, then it is absurd to protest vigorously against the practice which we see pursued by such men as Juan Campero, Martin Llobet, Juan de Ruesga, Guillermo Sagrera, or Pedro de Cumba, and we shall do well to admit, whenever necessary, that he is the best architect who designs the best building, whatever his education; though it is undoubtedly true that he is most likely to be the best architect who is the best taught, the most refined, and the most regularly educated in his art. ”

“ In England we have hardly a single attempt at anything of the kind, though in Ireland, in St. Cormack’s Chapel at Cashel, we not only have an example, but one also that proves to us that we may build in this solid fashion, so that our work may endure in extraordinary perfection come what may—as it has there—of neglect, of desolation, and of desecration! Yet of all the virtues of good architecture none are greater than solidity and permanence, and we in England cannot therefore afford to affect any of our Insular airs of superiority over these old Spanish artists! ”

“ The groining piers are clusters of shafts, and the buttresses on the outside are finished with crocketed gables and a bold cornice carved with foliage. The traceries are now all filled in with very thin panels of alabaster, which do not obscure the light much, whilst they effectually keep out the sun; but this precaution against sunshine does not seem to have been much needed, if the men were right who raised a second stage upon the old cloister, the Renaissance arcades of which are all left perfectly open. ”

“ Steep flights of steps lead from one Plaza to another, a fountain plays among quarrelsome water-carriers in one, and in another not only does an old woman retail scallop-shells to those who want them, but a tribe of market people ply their trade, cover the flags with their bright fruit, make the ear tired with their eternal wrangle, and the eye delighted with their gay choice of colours for sashes, headgear, and what not. ”

“ With such feelings about the exterior, the complete change in the character of the work as one goes through the door is more than usually striking, for you are at once transferred from what is all modern, to what is almost all very old, uniform, and but little disturbed. The interior of the transepts is very impressive; their length is not far from equal to that of the nave, and the view is less interrupted than in it, as the rails between the Coro and the Capilla mayor are very light, and the stalls are all to the west of the crossing. The whole detail of the design is extremely simple. ”

“ It is just what we see at the present day, and we owe an incidental debt of gratitude to this old architect for showing us that in the thirteenth century, just as much as in the nineteenth, it was possible for an artist to believe in the fitness and religiousness of one style as contrasted with another, and steadily to ignore the fantastic conceits of the vernacular architecture of the day and place in favour of that which he knew to be purer and truer, more lovely and more symbolical. ”

“ Between this window and the gable of the great doorway is an enormous sculpture of the Last Supper: the table extends from buttress to buttress; and our Lord and the Apostles sit each in a great niche. The steeple is certainly rather imposing in outline: a simple square tower at the base, and for some 170 feet from the ground, it is then changed to an octagon with bold turrets and pinnacles; and above this is a low spire, chiefly to be noticed for the three rows of metal rays which project from its sides. ”