Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-12-02
RELICS OF THE MOORS
Beautiful Architecture to Be Seen in Old
Spain.
singing and Dancing Performed Near
iy the Same Now as They
Were Centuries Ago.


From he saturday Review
The Moors. when they were driven out "
SPAIN left behind them, as II for SOM.
steaIthy purpose. many Of their secrets
wherever you walk in the south of Spain
you VIII come upon mosques, palaces. tow
ers' gateways. which they built To nre-
petuate themselves i'm a sirapq. ls,1 .,
you VIII ind in ruined fragments upon hills
ana windowless white houses uDa.r ,,lr,
trees. both actual remains and .,.rsis,.,,t
ioiioWngs of their cool secluded WAY, Of
puiIdifS, meant for even fiercer skies ana
an even more reticent Indoor life often
as in the Giralda by the side Of tho G,tbf,
cathedral at Saville and In the moso,I..
INTO which a Christian church iras been
nLhl az SnrdoNa, YOU can see at one glance
uhe coniilCt OF the contrast Of two religions
Oh Two theories of the universe Tn,
mosque has no solemnity no mystery. n ia
a place of Closed-in silence shut I'm even
ltoth me sky, In paradise OF abstract
art one thinks OF the plumaRe Of troniraI
ollds. the waving Of palms, darling fugus
on the ciaNlchord to figure TO himself Of
the particular, after all unique. kind OF fas-
clnaiion which the masterpieces OF Arab
architecture convey to one Nothing q,
brilliant was ever imagined by a Gothic
carver, so full Of light, so airy 50 serpen-
une In swiftness. \ mosque II seems as
one walks among its pillars. is not a church
al All, but rather a city, the arCades and al
coNes Of city of fiery peopIe in whom
Strength runs all to deliCacy The Arabs
dld not build high, they built wide: and
they sent their imagination out like ar
rows hther and thither, in a flight at once
RANDOM ana mathematical. How singular
a contrast, is there not, with Gothic build
ing, whose broad base IL set for a steady
heaNenward ascension? Yet those caprices
IN every entertainment to which line lends
lJSelt, are all so mat 2rial. and Of the earth
And more immaterial worship Of the idea
OF God than any Christian architectura
Here there is invention of pattern into
which no natural object is ever allowed 10
lntrude, the true art for arts sake pure
ldea, mathematics, invention in abstract;
for ii Is the work of an Imagination in
toXicated with itself, finding beginning and
end In its own formally beautiful working
out, without relation to nature or humau-
ity.
You cannot walk through a little town in
the south Of Spain without hearing q
strange sound, between crying and chant
ing which wanders out to you from behind
barred windows and from among the tin
king bells of the mules The MalaRuena
they call this kind of singing but II has no
more to do with Malaga than the mosque AT
Cordova has to do with the soil on which IL
stands 1t is as eastern as the music Of
tcmtoms and gongs. and, like eastern uu-
sic, ii is music before rhythm, music which
comes down to US untouched by the inven-
ton of the modern scale, from an antiquity
out of which plain chant is first step to-
ward modern harmony. And this Moorish
music is, like Moorish architecture an
Arabesque 1t avoids definite form lust a.
the lines in stone avoid definite form: il has
the same endlessness, motion without be-
ginning or end, turning upon itself I'm n
kind Of Infinitely varied monotony. The
Torture Of the voice are like those coils
which often spring from a central point OF
ornament, to twist outward. as I'm a par
tfcular piece of very delicate work in the
first mihrab in the mosque at Cordova. In
both ensemble Is everything, and every
thing is pattern.
There is the same avoidance of emphasis.
the same continuance on one level; no spe-
cial part starts out for separate notice
But the passion of this music is like no
other passion; fierce, immoderate, sus-
tained. ii is like the crying of a wild beast
in suffering, and IT thrills one precisely be-
cause II seems to be so far from humanity,
so ineXplicable, so deeply rooted in the ami
NAL of which we are but one species
Moorish music is inarticulate, and so IL
brings a wild relief which no articulate
music could ever bring. 1t is the voice OF
uncivilized people who have the desires and
sorrows common to every living being. and
an Inconsistencies Of their meaning, which
Is, after all, what we come back to after
having searched through many meanings.
1t is sad, not because Of personal sorrow,
but because Of all the sorrow there is and
always has been in the world. The eyes of
Spanish women have something Of the same
| fierce melancholy, and with as little per-
sonal meaning. 1t is a music which has
not Vet lost companionship with the voice
of the wind, the voice of the sea- the voices
of the forest. It mas never accepted order
anu become art. II remains CnaOtiC, ele-
mental, a part Of nature trying to speak.
Singing and dancing in Spain are as the
right hand and the left and the same airs,
thr0bbing on a guitar guide the most char
acteriStiC kind of dancing. Here the mean
ing is more explicit; like the pantomime OF
all eastern dancing like the shapeless jog
trot of the Sudanese, which you can see at
Earl's Court: like the undisguised mimicry
Of the women I'm the Rue de Care at the
last Paris exhibition, it is wholly sexual
But in the dancing. inherited from the
Moors which the gypsies have perfected in
Spain, there is far more subtlety. delicacy
and real art than in the franker posturiug
of Egypt and Arabia. 1t Is the most elab-
crate dancing in the world, and, like the
music, 1t has an abstract quality which
saves Ii from ever. for a moment, becoming
vulgar Hieratc, not perverse, centered
upon the central fact of existence; moving
gravely. without frivolity. in sense with
out passion, deeply is the passion rooted
in the nature of things. the dance coils
round upon itself as the trails of music
and the trails in stone coil round upon
themselves. 1t is another secret of the
MoorS and must remain mysterious to
US as those other secrets, until we have
come a little closer than We have vet come
to the immaterial wisdom Of the east