Walter M. Gallichan

“ Seville in spring is gay to hilarity. The great fair and the Easter ceremonials and fêtes attract thousands to the capital of Andalusia at the season when the banks of the Guadalquivir are white with the bloom of the orange-trees, and hundreds of nightingales make the evening breezes melodious; when the heat is bearable, the sky a deep azure, and the whole town festive, and bright with the costumes of many provinces. No blight of east wind depresses in early spring, and rarely indeed is the promise of roses and fruit threatened by frost in this region of perennial mildness and sunlight. ”

“ But what a memorial it is! The city is like a huge volume of history, and we linger over its enchanting pages. Let us now look upon the monuments that reveal to us the soul and genius of Venice of the olden times.
Several of the most important buildings in Venice border the fine square of San Marco, a favourite evening gathering-place of the Venetians.{41} Dominating the piazza is the Cathedral of San Marco, with its magnificent front, a bewildering array of portals, decorated arches, carvings in relief, surmounted by graceful towers and steeples. ”

“ Very pleasant are the palm-shaded squares and the walks by the Guadalquivir. In the tortuous white alleys you come unexpectedly upon charming wrought-iron gates, through which you catch glimpses of cheerful patios.{96} Some of these lanes are so narrow that a pannier-mule almost bars your road. And above this fair city the sun shines almost perpetually, while the smokeless air has a wonderful clarity.{97}
CORDOVA CORDOVA, like Seville and Granada, is a memorial of the Moors. It is a city that sleeps, living in the memory of its past. ”

“ It is hard to decide which appeals to us the more strongly in Rome—the relics of Cæsar’s empire or the art of the Middle Ages. The Coliseum brings to mind “the grandeur that was Rome,” in the days of the pagan majesty, while St Peter’s, with its wealth of gorgeous decoration and great paintings, reminds us of the supreme power of the city under the popes.
In the Coliseum there is social history written in stone. We look upon the tiers rising one above the other, and picture them in all the splendour of a day of cruel carnival. ”

“ GRANADA THAT which is lacking in sober Toledo is evident everywhere in glowing Granada. The fiery Andalusian sun gilds and colours the city, and the whitened houses cast a deep blue shade in the narrow streets. No forbidding portals bar the way to the flowing patios, those courtyards that are to-day one of the chief charms of the Andalusian towns. The climate is soft and languorous; the air laden with the scent of blossoms and roses, and the people gayer in their garb and bearing than the natives of Castile. ”

“ For the student of early Gothic architecture in France, Chartres is a most profitable field. The older forms of the arch, the foliated window-circles, the boldly decorated doorways, the twelfth-century decorative details, and the massive, as well as the light, buttress can be seen here in perfection. Few, if any, cathedral portals in Europe can excel in richness those of Chartres. Here is to be seen the noblest examples of twelfth-century sculpture. ”

“ The lightheartedness of Seville has expression in music, dancing, and merry forgatherings each evening in the patios, when the guitar murmurs sweetly, and the click of the castanets sets the blood tingling. Everyone in Seville dances. The children dance almost as soon as they learn to toddle. In the cafés you will see the nimblest dancers of Spain, and follow the intricate movements of the bolero, as well as the curious swaying and posturings of the older Moorish dances. ”

“ Its history since the last of the sultans in Spain is comparatively uneventful, its glorious days were before the expulsion of the Morisco inhabitants, when the city was a seat of learning, a great centre of art and industry, and the place of residence of illustrious caliphs.
The somnolence of Cordova is like an eternal siesta. You wander in ancient streets, with houses guarded from the ardent rays of the sun, and marvel how the people live, for there is no outward sign, as in Seville, of commercial activity. ”

“ The houses are white and clean, the streets brighter than the thoroughfares of sombre Toledo, and the charming courtyards inviting and pleasant, with clustering roses and spreading palms. There is colour everywhere, Cordova is a painter’s paradise.
In summer the heat is extreme. The glare of the whitened houses reflects the brilliant sapphire of the sky, and becomes painful to the eyes; the city is in a plain, exposed to every ray of the Andalusian sun. ”

“ Bullfights, gorgeous ecclesiastic spectacles, and dancing—these are the recreations of rich and poor alike in Seville to-day. In this city of pleasure you will see the majo, the Andalusian dandy, as he struts up and down the Sierpes—the only busy street of shops—spruce, self-conscious, casting fervent glances at the señoras accompanied by their duennas. Go into the meaner alleys and market streets, and you will see the very vagrants that Murillo painted, tattered wastrels who address one another as Señor, and hold licences to beg. ”

“ Yet even the dirty faces of the alleys, in this city of loveliness, have, according to artists, a value and a harmony. There is the same obvious,{33} sordid poverty here as in London or Manchester. But the dress of the people, even if ragged, is bright, and the faces, even though wrinkled and haggard, fit the scene and the setting in the estimate of the painter.
If your habit is analytic and critical, you will find defects in the modern life of Venice that cannot be hidden. The city is not prosperous in our British sense of the word. ”

“ Perhaps there is nothing made by man to float upon the waters more graceful in its lines than a gondola. To think of Venice, is to recall these gliding, swan-like, silent craft, that ply upon the innumerable waterways. Like ghosts by night they steal along in the deep shadows of the palaces, impelled by boatmen whose every attitude is a study in lissome grace. To lie in a gondola, while the attendant noiselessly propels the stately skiff with his{32} pliant oar, is to realise romance and the perfection of leisurely locomotion. ”

“ Immensity is the chief impression of the interior of St Peter’s. Even the figures of cherubs are gigantic. The great nave with its marble pavement and huge pillars, is long-drawn from the portal to the altar, and the space within the great dome is bewildering in its vastness. ”

“ It is a city of canals and dykes, spanned by hundreds of bridges, a northern Venice, dependent for its safety upon the proper control of sluices. The devouring sea is kept at bay by a mighty dam. Truly, Amsterdam is one of the wonders of men’s ingenuity.
The plan of its streets is remarkable; the thoroughfares are a series of semi-circles with their points to the Zuyder Zee. The flow of{221} the canals and waterways that wind about the city is impelled by artificial means. The number of the piles upon which the palace of Amsterdam stands is reckoned at nearly fourteen thousand. ”

“ So in this mosque, on whatever side you look, the eye loses itself among the columns. It is a forest of marble, whose confines one cannot discover. You follow with your eye, one by one, the very long rows of columns that interlace at every step with numberless other rows, and you reach a semi-obscure background, in which other columns seem to be gleaming. There are nineteen aisles, which extend from north to south, traversed by thirty-three others, supported, among them all by more than nine{110} hundred columns of prophyry, jasper, breccia, and marbles of every colour. ”

“ In Toledo you are made reflective, perchance a little melancholy, while in Granada you are infected by the spirit of a past long dead. But in fair, sunlit Seville you live in the present as well as in the past; and your heart is made light by the pervasive gaiety of the people and the cheerfulness of the streets and plazas. ”

“ If we do not find Bruges a town of dull aspect it is due to personal temperament and taste. There may be greyness in these old Gothic towns, there may be a suggestion of decay in Bruges; but there is also a strong fascination, a charm that appeals to those whose eyes have grown weary of modern streets with their regular outlines and monotonous architecture. ”

“ Sensuous seems to me the right word to convey the influence of Venice upon a summer evening, when, a little wearied by the heat of the day, you loll upon a bridge, smoking a cigar, and drinking in languidly the beauty of the scene, while a grateful breeze comes from the darkening sea. ”

“ These tortuous lanes of Belgium and Holland, the gables, and the tall irregular houses, are steeped in an old-world atmosphere, and every corner suggests a subject for the painter’s brush. Certainly, the term “picturesque” may be used in speaking of Bruges.
It is still a large town, with a big population; but the thoroughfares seem rarely thronged, and there is slumber in the by-lanes. There appears to be no demand for new houses, and no indication that Bruges will grow. Its hotels prosper through the number of strangers that visit the city. ”

“ There is an air of decayed grandeur, an impression that existence in this town of exquisite art is not happiness for the swarm of indigents that live in the historic purlieus.
On the other hand, there is the climate, a soft, sleepy climate, not very healthy perhaps, but usually kindly. The sun is generous, the sky rarely frowns. Life passes lazily, dreamily, on the oily waters of the canals, in the piazza, and in those tall tumble-down houses built on piles. No one appears to hurry about the business of money-getting ”

“ Society in Seville takes its pleasure seriously, but the seriousness is not the dullness that attends the Englishman’s attempts at hilarity. The Spaniard is less demonstrative than the Frenchman, less mercurial than the Italian. Notwithstanding, the crowd at the races, at the battle of flowers, or watching the religious processions, or at the opera, is happy in its quiet intentness. The enthusiasm for bullfighting is perhaps the strongest visible emotion in Seville, the Alma Mater of the champions of the arena.{83} At the corrida the Sevillian allows himself to become excited. ”

“ The Renaissance, with its mighty intellectual impetus, its reverence for the arts and culture, and its resistance against the absolutism of the Papacy came as the salvation of Rome from the terrors and the stagnation of the dark days.
The birth of Michael Angelo, in 1474, came with a new era of enlightenment. Angelo, painter, sculptor, poet, and philosopher, was commissioned by Pope Julius II. to carve a great work in Rome, and to adorn the Sistine Chapel with frescoes. Three years were spent on these superb paintings. This is the most wonderful ceiling painting in the world. ”

“ Here the natives come and go and saunter. The women are small, like the women of Spain, dark in complexion, and in manner animated. They are very feminine; often they are lovely.
You will be struck with the gaiety of the people, a sheer lightheartedness more evident and exuberant than the gaiety of Spanish folk. Perhaps the struggle for existence is less keen than it seems among the inhabitants of the more{35} lowly quarters of the city. At anyrate, the Venetians are lovers of song and laughter. A flower delights a woman, a cigarette is a gift for a man. ”

“ Spain and Portugal were reaping the splendid golden harvest while Venice was impoverished. Consternation filled the minds of the citizens. The great Republic had reached the height of its glory in the fifteenth century, but from the falling off of her commerce she never recovered. It is curious that in the period of decline, Venice expended much wealth in works of art, and in the embellishment of the buildings and palaces. ”

“ Very delightful and inviting are the banks of the Moldau on a summer’s evening when Prague gives itself to music and idling. Handsome bridges span the stream, and through their arches glide the great rafts of timber and the fishermen’s boats.
Viewed from one of the hills of the environs, the city is a scene of colour, with spires and mediæval gables, green open spaces, and narrow lanes. ”

“ The life of Rome is outdoor; folk loiter and congregate in the streets; there is much traffic of vehicles used for pleasure. Over the city stretches “the Italian sky,” ardently blue—the sky that we know from paintings before we have visited Rome—and upon the white buildings shines a hot sun from which we shrink in midsummer noons. ”

“ In Verona everyone strives to live and work in the open air. The streets are thronged on days of market, stalls are set up in the narrow lanes and in the piazzas, vegetables and fruit come in great store. The eternal garlic scents the street, but we learn to love its odour. In Spain a market is quiet and solemn; here the sce{74}ne is gay and noisy. Voices are raised, and there is lively bartering of wares. There are subjects at every turn for the brush of the painter—stern old buildings, winding alleys, and groups of garishly dressed peasants. ”

“ The natives are reserved, a little proud in their demeanour, but not inhospitable to the strangers who come and go constantly, and lose their way in the tortuous streets, in spite of plans and guide-books. Persistent beggars hang about the cathedral, and squat, blinking in the sun, along the ramparts. The children pursue the visitor, uttering a few words of broken English, French, and German, asking for a copper in the English tongue, and thanking you for it in French or Spanish. ”

“ Close to the cathedral is the semi-Moorish Alcázar, with its strangely mingled styles of architecture. The buildings are in part a fortress, while within the walls are portions of a palace of the sultans and a residence of Christian kings. The rich frontage of Pedro’s palace is composite, and probably only the gate is purely Moorish. In the Court of the Maidens there is much gorgeous decoration. As in the Alhambra, we see the characteristic gallery with delicate columns, and arches with ornamental inscriptions. The Hall of the Ambassadors is the pride of the Alcázar. ”

“ The interior of the cathedral impresses by its vastness and height. A wider nave is not to be found among the cathedrals of France, and the aisles are proportionate in width. The eye ranges upwards to the wonderful roof, with its opulent decoration, to the beautiful triforium, and the tall, narrow windows of the clerestory. ”

“ Under Mendoza and other prelates, Flemish artists worked in the cathedral.
The architecture is Gothic, with many traces of Baroque and Mudéjar art. There is a very lofty and beautiful tower, with a steeple surmounting it. The flying buttresses are exceedingly graceful; the eight doorways of great beauty. A splendid façade, with a wealth of statues, faces the west. It has three portals and a fine rose window, and is flanked by towers. The Puerta de los Leones is noble Renaissance work, splendidly sculptured with rich ornaments. ”