 |
In the thirteenth century, with the coming of the Merinids, Moroccan architecture grew more delicate, more luxurious, and perhaps also more peculiarly itself. That interaction of Spanish and Arab art which produced the style known as Moorish reached, on the African side of the Straits, its greatest completeness in Morocco. It was under the Merinids that Moorish art grew into full beauty in Spain, and under the Merinids that Fez rebuilt the mosque Kairouiyin and that of the Andalusians, and created six of its nine Medersas, the most perfect surviving buildings of that unique moment of sober elegance and dignity.
The Cherifian dynasties brought with them a decline in taste. A crude desire for immediate effect, and the tendency toward a more barbaric luxury, resulted in the piling up of frail palaces as impermanent as tents. Yet a last flower grew from the deformed and dying trunk of the old Empire. The Saadian Sultan who invaded the Soudan and came back laden with gold and treasure from the great black city of Timbuctoo covered Marrakech with hasty monuments of which hardly a trace survives. But there, in a nettle-grown corner of a ruinous quarter, lay hidden till yesterday the Chapel of the Tombs: the last emanation of pure beauty of a mysterious, incomplete, forever retrogressive and yet forever forward-straining people. The Merinid tombs of Fez have fallen; but those of their destroyers linger on in precarious grace, like a flower on the edge of a precipice.
IV
Moroccan architecture, then, is easily divided into four groups: the fortress, the mosque, the collegiate building and the private house.
The kernel of the mosque is always the mihrab, or niche facing toward the Kasbah of Mecca, where the imam[A] stands to say the prayer. This arrangement, which enabled as many as possible of the faithful to kneel facing the mihrab, results in a ground-plan necessarily consisting of long aisles parallel with the wall of the mihrab, to which more and more aisles are added as the number of worshippers grows. Where there was not space to increase these lateral aisles they were lengthened at each end. This typical plan is modified in the Moroccan mosques by a wider transverse space, corresponding with the nave of a Christian church, and extending across the mosque from the praying niche to the principal door. To the right of the mihrab is the minbar, the carved pulpit (usually of cedar-wood incrusted with mother-of-pearl and ebony) from which the Koran is read. In some Algerian and Egyptian mosques (and at Cordova, for instance) the mihrab is enclosed in a sort of screen called the maksoura; but in Morocco this modification of the simpler plan was apparently not adopted.
[Footnote A: The "deacon" or elder of the Moslem religion, which has no order of priests.]
The interior construction of the mosque was no doubt usually affected by the nearness of Roman or Byzantine ruins. M. Saladin points out that there seem to be few instances of the use of columns made by native builders; but it does not therefore follow that all the columns used in the early mosques were taken from Roman temples or Christian basilicas. The Arab invaders brought their architects and engineers with them; and it is very possible that some of the earlier mosques were built by prisoners or fortune-hunters from Greece or Italy or Spain.
At any rate, the column on which the arcades of the vaulting rests in the earlier mosques, as at Tunis and Kairouan, and the mosque El Kairouiyin at Fez, gives way later to the use of piers, foursquare, or with flanking engaged pilasters as at Algiers and Tlemcen. The exterior of the mosques, as a rule, is almost entirely hidden by a mushroom growth of buildings, lanes and covered bazaars, but where the outer walls have remained disengaged they show, as at Kairouan and Cordova, great masses of windowless masonry pierced at intervals with majestic gateways.
Beyond the mosque, and opening into it by many wide doors of beaten bronze or carved cedar-wood, lies the Court of the Ablutions. The openings in the facade were multiplied in order that, on great days, the faithful who were not able to enter the mosque might hear the prayers and catch a glimpse of the mihrab.
In a corner of the courts stands the minaret. It is the structure on which Moslem art has played the greatest number of variations, cutting off its angles, building it on a circular or polygonal plan, and endlessly modifying the pyramids and pendentives by which the ground-plan of one story passes into that of the next. These problems of transition, always fascinating to the architect, led in Persia, Mesopotamia and Egypt to many different compositions and ways of treatment, but in Morocco the minaret, till modern times, remained steadfastly square, and proved that no other plan is so beautiful as this simplest one of all.
Surrounding the Court of the Ablutions are the school-rooms, libraries and other dependencies, which grew as the Mahometan religion prospered and Arab culture developed.
The medersa was a farther extension of the mosque: it was the academy where the Moslem schoolman prepared his theology and the other branches of strange learning which, to the present day, make up the curriculum of the Mahometan university. The medersa is an adaptation of the private house to religious and educational ends; or, if one prefers another analogy, it is a fondak built above a miniature mosque. The ground-plan is always the same: in the centre an arcaded court with a fountain, on one side the long narrow praying-chapel with the mihrab, on the other a classroom with the same ground-plan, and on the next story a series of cell-like rooms for the students, opening on carved cedar-wood balconies. This cloistered plan, where all the effect is reserved for the interior facades about the court, lends itself to a delicacy of detail that would be inappropriate on a street-front; and the medersas of Fez are endlessly varied in their fanciful but never exuberant decoration.
M. Tranchant de Lunel has pointed out (in "France-Maroc") with what a sure sense of suitability the Merinid architects adapted this decoration to the uses of the buildings. On the lower floor, under the cloister, is a revetement of marble (often alabaster) or of the almost indestructible ceramic mosaic.[A] On the floor above, massive cedar-wood corbels ending in monsters of almost Gothic inspiration support the fretted balconies; and above rise stucco interfacings, placed too high up to be injured by man, and guarded from the weather by projecting eaves.
[Footnote A: These Moroccan mosaics are called zellijes.]
The private house, whether merchant's dwelling or chieftain's palace, is laid out on the same lines, with the addition of the reserved quarters for women; and what remains in Spain and Sicily of Moorish secular architecture shows that, in the Merinid period, the play of ornament must have been—as was natural—even greater than in the medersas.
The Arab chroniclers paint pictures of Merinid palaces, such as the House of the Favourite at Cordova, which the soberer modern imagination refused to accept until the medersas of Fez were revealed, and the old decorative tradition was shown in the eighteenth century Moroccan palaces. The descriptions given of the palaces of Fez and of Marrakech in the preceding articles, which make it unnecessary, in so slight a note as this, to go again into the detail of their planning and decoration, will serve to show how gracefully the art of the mosque and the medersa was lightened and domesticated to suit these cool chambers and flower-filled courts.
With regard to the immense fortifications that are the most picturesque and noticeable architectural features of Morocco, the first thing to strike the traveller is the difficulty of discerning any difference in the probable date of their construction until certain structural peculiarities are examined, or the ornamental details of the great gateways are noted. Thus the Almohad portions of the walls of Fez and Rabat are built of stone, while later parts are of rubble; and the touch of European influence in certain gateways of Meknez and Fez at once situate them in the seventeenth century. But the mediaeval outline of these great piles of masonry, and certain technicalities in their plan, such as the disposition of the towers, alternating in the inner and outer walls, continued unchanged throughout the different dynasties, and this immutability of the Moroccan military architecture enables the imagination to picture, not only what was the aspect of the fortified cities which the Greeks built in Palestine and Syria, and the Crusaders brought back to Europe, but even that of the far-off Assyrio-Chaldaean strongholds to which the whole fortified architecture of the Middle Ages in Europe seems to lead back.
IX
BOOKS CONSULTED
Afrique Francaise (L'). Bulletin Mensuel du Comite de l'Afrique Francaise. Paris, 21, rue Cassette.
Bernard, Augustin. Le Maroc. Paris, F. Alcan, 1916.
Budgett-Meakin. The Land of the Moors. London, 1902.
Chatelain, L. Recherches archeologiques au Maroc: Volubilis. (Published by the Military Command in Morocco).
Les Fouilles de Volubilis (Extrait du Bulletin Archeologique, 1916)
Chevrillon, A. Crepuscule d'Islam.
Cochelet, Charles. Le Naufrage du Brick Sophie.
Conferences Marocaines. Paris, Plon-Nourrit.
Doutte, E. En Tribu. Paris, 1914.
Foucauld, Vicomte de. La Reconnaissance au Maroc. Paris, 1888.
France-Maroc. Revue Mensuelle, Paris, 4, rue Chauveau-Lagarde.
Gaillard. Une Ville d'Islam, Fez. Paris, 1909.
Gayet, Al. L'Art Arabe. Paris, 1906.
Houdas, O. Le Maroc de 1631 a 1812. Extrait d'une histoire du Maroc intitulee "L'Interprete qui s'exprime clairement sur les dynasties de l'Orient et de l'Occident," par Ezziani. Paris, E. Leroux, 1886.
Koechlin, Raymond. Une Exposition d'Art Marocain. (Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Juillet-Septembre, 1917).
Leo Africanus, Description of Africa.
Loti, Pierre. Au Maroc.
Migeon, Gaston. Manuel d'Art Musulman, II, Les Arts Plastiques et Industriels. Paris, A. Picard et Fils, 1907.
Saladin, H. Manuel d'Art Musulman, I, L'Architecture. Paris, A. Picard et Fils, 1907.
Segonzac, Marquis de. Voyages au Maroc. Paris, 1903.
Au Coeur de l'Atlas. Paris, 1910.
Tarde, A. de. Les Villes du Maroc: Fez, Marrakech, Rabat. (Journal de l'Universite des Annales, 15 Oct., 1 Nov., 1918).
Windus. A Journey to Mequinez. London, 1721.
INDEX
Abdallah-ben-Aissa Abd-el-Aziz Abd-el-Hafid Abd-el-Kader Abd-el-Moumen Abou-el Abbas ("The Golden") Abou Hassan Abou-Youssef Agdal, olive-yards of the Ahmed-Baba Ahmed-el-Hiba Aid-el-Kebir, the Aissaouas, the, of Kairouan dance of Algeria, French conquest of Almohads, the, invasion of Morocco by architecture of Almoravids, the, invasion of Morocco by destruction of architecture of Andalusian Moors, the, mosque of Arabs, conquest of Morocco by Architecture, Moroccan, four basic conditions of four groups of of the Almohad dynasty of the Cherifian dynasties of the Merinid dynasty the Saadian mausoleum the collegiate building the fortress the mosque the private house Art, Moroccan, sources of influence on disappearance of treasures of and Moorish art
Ba-Ahmed, builder of the Bahia Bab F'touh cemetery, at Fez Bahia, the, palace of, at Marrakech apartment of Grand Vizier's Favourite in Bazaars, of Fez of Marrakech of Sale Beni-Merins See Merinids Berbers, the attack of, on Fez origins of dialects of nomadic character of heresy and schisms of Bernard, M. Augustin Black Guard, the Sultan's uniform of Moulay-Ismael's method of raising Blue Men of the Sahara, the Bou-Jeloud, palace of Bugeaud, Marshal
Carthage, African colonies of Casablanca, exhibitions at port of Catholics, in Morocco Cemetery, El Alou Bab F'touh Chatelain, M. Louis Chella, ruins of Cherifian dynasties, the architecture of Children, Moroccan, in the harem negro training of, for Black Guard Chleuh boys, dance of Christians, captive, and the building of Meknez religious liberty to, in Africa Clocks, in Sultan's harem at Rabat Cochelet, Charles, his "Naufrage du Brick Sophie" Colleges, at Fez at Sale Moslem architecture of Moroccan Colors, of North African towns Commerce, Moroccan Conti, Princesse de Convention of Fez, the Courts of Justice, Moroccan Crowds, Moroccan street Culture, in North Africa
Dance, of Chleuh boys of the Hamadchas Dawn, in Africa Djebilets, the Doutte, M. Dust-storm, at Marrakech
Education, in Morocco Elakhdar, mosque of El Alou, cemetery of El Andalous, mosque of Elbah (Old Fez) harems of Eldjid (New Fez) palaces of founding of El Kairouiyin, mosque of the praying-hall of the court of ablutions of legend of the tortoise of El-Ksar El-Mansour, Yacoub Elmansour, palace of Empress Mother, the English emissaries, visit of, to Meknez Exhibitions, planned by General Lyautey Ezziani, chronicler of Moulay-Ismael
Fatimites, the Fez, the approach to unchanged character of ruins of Merinid tombs of the upper or new old summer-palace at night in antiquity of palaces of the inns at streets of a city of wealth the merchant of bazaars of a melancholy city twilight in the shrines of mosque of Moulay Idriss at mosque of El Kairouiyinat the University of Medersas of mosque of El Andalous at Bab F'touh cemetery of the potters of art and culture of the Mellah of harems of Old the Convention of uprising in attack of Berbers on exhibitions at Moslem college at founding of Almoravid conquest of centre of Moroccan learning Catholic diocese at massacres at Fez Elbali Fez Eldjid Fondak Nedjanne, the Fortifications, Moroccan, architecture of Foucauld, Vicomte de Franco-German treaty of 1911 French Protectorate in Morocco, work of French, conquests in Morocco at Fez Furniture, disappearance of Merinid
Ghilis, the Gouraud, General
Hamadch, tomb of Hamadchas, the, ritual dance of Harem in old Fez an Imperial in Marrakech in old Rabat Hassan, Sultan Hassan, tower of, at Rabat Hassanians, the, rule of Holy War, the, against France against Spain and Portugal Hospitals, in Morocco Houses, Moroccan, architecture of color of plan of rich private
Ibn-Toumert Idriss I Idriss II Idrissite empire, the Inns, Moroccan
Jews, of Sefrou treatment of North African
Kairouan, the Aissaouas of Great Mosque of Kairouiyin, mosque of See El Kairouiyin Kalaa, ruins of Kenitra, port of Koechlin, M. Raymond Koutoubya, tower of the
Lamothe, General Land, area of cultivated, in Morocco Louis XIV, and Moulay-Ismael Lunel, M. Tranchant de Lyautey, General at Sultan's court appointed Resident-General in Morocco military occupation of Morocco by policy of economic development of Morocco achieved by summary of work of
Maclean, Sir Harry Mamora, forest of Mangin, General Mansourah, mosque of Market, of Marrakech in Moulay Idriss of Sale of Sefrou Marrakech, the road to founders of tower of the Koutoubya at palace of the Bahia at the lamp-lighters of mixed population of bazaars of the "morocco" workers of olive-yards of the Menara of a holiday of merchants of the Square of the Dead in French administration office at fruit-market of dance of Chleuh boys in Saadian tombs of a harem in taken by the French Catholic diocese at Chapel of the Tombs at Medersa, the, of the Oudayas Attarine at Fez at Sale architecture of Mehedyia, Phenician colony of Meknez, building of the Kasbah of palaces of stables of entrance into ruins of sunken gardens of visit of English emissaries to Mellah, of Fez of Sefrou Menara, the, in the Agdal Mequinez See Meknez Merinids, the, tombs of, at Fez conquest of Morocco by architecture of Mirador, the Imperial Moorish art Mosque, of Elakhador of El Andalous of El Kairouiyin of Kairouan of Mansourah of Rabat of Tinmel of Tunisia architecture of Moroccan Moulay Hafid Moulay-el-Hassan Moulay Idriss I, rule of tomb of Moulay Idriss II, tomb of rule of Moulay Idriss, Sacred City of Street of the Weavers in feast of the Hamadchas in market-place of whiteness of founding of Moulay-Ismael, and Louis XIV exploits of mausoleum of Moulay Idriss enlarged by Meknez built by the Black Guard of description of palaces of and English emissaries death of rule of successors of Moulay Youssef
Nedjarine, fountain and inn of Night, in Fez
Oases, Moroccan Marrakech Sefrou Settat Oudayas, the, Kasbah of Medersa of
Palaces, Moroccan, the Bahia Bou-Jeloud at Fez at Meknez of Moulay-Ismael Phenicians, the, African explorations of Pilgrimage to Sale, a Population, Moroccan, varied elements of Ports, Moroccan Portugal, the Holy War against Pottery, Berber Potters' Field, the
Rabat Tower of Hassan at ruins of mosque at called "Camp of Victory" Sacrifice of the Sheep at Sultan's harem of visit to a harem in old exhibitions at port of Moslem college at Central Laboratory at Railways, Moroccan, built by French Protectorate Rarb, the Roads, Moroccan, built by French Protectorate Romans, the, African explorations of
Saadian Sultans, the, history of tombs of rule of Sacrifice of the Sheep, the Saint-Amand, M. de Saladin, M. H., his "Manual of Moslem Architecture" Sale, first view of type of untouched Moroccan city bazaar of Medersas of market of colors of Schools, in Morocco Sedrata, ruins of Sefrou market-place of men and women of Jewish colony of Senegal Settat, oasis of Sheep, sacrifice of the Sidi-Mohammed Slaves, Moroccan trade in white Sloughi, bronze, at Volubilis Soudan Spain, the Holy War against Spanish zone, the, German intrigue in Stables, of Meknez Stewart, Commodore Street of the Weavers (Moulay Idriss) Streets, Moroccan
Tangier colors of taken by the French Tetuan, bronze chandelier of Timbuctoo, the Sultanate of Tingitanian Mauretania Tinmel, ruins of mosque at Tlemcen, the conflict for Touaregs, the Tower, of Hassan of the Koutoubya Tunisia, Almohad sanctuary of
Vandals, the, African invasion by Veiled Men, the Versailles and Meknez Villages, "sedentary" Volubilis, ruins of bronze sloughi of founded by Romans
Wedding, Jewish, procession bringing gifts for Windus, John Women, Moroccan, dress of of Sefrou of the harems in Sultan's harem in harems of Old Fez in harem of Marrakech in harem of Rabat negro
Yacoub-el-Mansour Youssef-ben-Tachfin
THE END |
|
