page_title: Al-Andalus
section_title: Art and architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Al-Andalus / Culture / Art and architecture
caption_attribution_description: Español: Miniatura de la Cantiga T187 (E185) -Panel 3 página 2 -de las Cantigas de Santa María. Con pelo cano, túnica roja y escudo rojo aparece representado Ibn al-Ahmar, rey de Granada (O'Callaghan, 1998, pp. 112-113)). Joseph F. O'Callaghan Alfonso X and the Cantigas De Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography, BRILL ISBN&#58; 9004110232.&#32; English: CSM 185. According to O'Callaghan, 1998, pp. 111-113, the picture described events in May 1264, during the w:Mudéjar revolt of 1264–66. w:Muhammad I of Granada is depicted in red tunic, with a red flag and red shield, leading his troops.
context_page_description: Al-Andalus was the name of the Iberian Peninsula, given by the Moors during the Middle Ages. At its greatest geographical extent, its territory occupied most of the peninsula and a part of present-day southern France, Septimania, and for nearly a century extended its control from Fraxinet over the Alpine passes which connect Italy to Western Europe. The name more specifically describes the different Arab or Berber states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492, though the boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquista progressed, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the vassalage of the Emirate of Granada.
  Following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, al-Andalus, then at its greatest extent, was divided into five administrative units, corresponding roughly to modern Andalusia; Portugal and Galicia; Castile and León; Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia; and the Languedoc-Roussillon area of Occitanie.
context_section_description: The Alhambra palace and fortress as well as the Generalife in Granada reflect the culture and art of the last centuries of Moorish rule of Al-Andalus. The complex was completed at this stage towards the end of the rule by Yusuf I (1333–1353) and Muhammed V, Sultan of Granada (1353–1391). Artists and intellectuals took refuge at Alhambra after the Reconquista began to roll back Muslim territory. The site integrates natural qualities with constructed structures and gardens, and is a testament to Moorish culture in Al-Andalus and to the skills of the Muslim artisans, craftsmen, and builders of their era.
  The decoration within the palace comes from the last great period of Al-Andalus art in Granada, with little of the Byzantine influence of contemporary Abbasid architecture. Artists endlessly reproduced the same forms and trends, creating a new style that developed over the course of the Nasrid Dynasty using elements created and developed during the centuries of Muslim rule on the Peninsula, including the Caliphate horseshoe arch, the Almohad sebka (a grid of rhombuses), the Almoravid palm, and unique combinations of these, as well as innovations such as stilted arches and muqarnas (stalactite ceiling decorations). Columns and muqarnas appear in several chambers, and the interiors of numerous palaces are decorated with arabesques and calligraphy. The arabesques of the interior are ascribed to, among other sultans, Yusuf I, Muhammed V, and Ismail I, Sultan of Granada.
  In Cordoba, the Umayyads sponsored the construction of the Great Mosque of Cordoba (now a Catholic church); its key features included an arcaded hypostyle hall with 856 columns, a horseshoe-arch mihrab facing Mecca, a vaulted dome, the Court of Oranges (containing fountains and imported citrus trees) and a minaret (later converted into a bell-tower). The Umayyads reconstructed the Roman-era bridge over the Guadalquivir River in Cordoba, while the Almohads later added the Calahorra Tower to the bridge.
  In Seville, Moorish rulers built the main section of the Giralda (later expanded as a bell-tower for the Seville Cathedral) as a massive minaret (resembling that of the Koutoubia Mosque in Morocco) for the Great Mosque of Seville, which also contained a Patio de los Naranjos (Court of Oranges). The Royal Alcazar of Seville, built by the Christian king Peter of Castile, displays prominent features of Mudejar and Moorish architecture, including decorative calligraphy and garden orchards with irrigation channels, jets, pools and fountains.
  Moorish architecture continued to have an influence on Western European architecture in the Medieval Ages. Additionally, one of the features of both Gothic and Islamic architecture, the pointed arch (adapted by Islamic architects from earlier Byzantine and Sassanid models), was increasingly utilized in the Islamic West and perhaps transmitted to Western Europe via Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula.
caption: Muhammad I of Granada (red shield), depicted in an illustration taken from the Cantigas de Santa María
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