When the last Moor sultan stood at a point south of Granada now on the N323 motorway called “Puerto del Suspiro del Moro” and looked back for the last time at his beloved Alhambra, the sigh he exhaled was profound – not just about the loss of a palace but also the rich and unified culture it represented. As he rode on into exile the clouds of intolerant catholic Spain closed in behind him amassing whispers of exclusions and expulsions, and a judgemental Inquisition. The moment was over, as it was for William Penn in Pennsylvania or Akbar at his Moghul Court, for Hellenist Alexandria or Tibet as the Dalai Lama similarly rode into exile.
And this painting is my own sigh. I am unashamedly in love with this building and its significance, the fact that its fragility survived at all, and though I paint it with my hand I know it with my heart- every twist and turn, every rhythm of arabesque or unfolding geometry, every discreetly placed symbol, its shifting interplay of light and shadow.
Something in it reminds us of something perhaps- that unitary society of our aspirations or that unitary reality we glimpse occasionally. The architects knew both. Such a private, outwardly modest building, it belies its hidden interior treasures, but all who pass through it are irrevocably moved. It influenced the writer Washington Irving who lived in it, Gaudi who imitated its stucco and soaring mocarabes, its water stairway. Civil engineers reproduced its irrigation and hydraulic systems and paradise gardens in English country estates like Chatsworth. It influenced the architects of the Taj Mahal in Agra, and musical compositions by Debussy and The Grateful Dead. Escher returned again and again to understand its mathematical ingenuity of mosaics and ceramic tiles, the geometry of infinity, impossibility, tessellation, symmetry and motion, all of which he incorporated into his own illusory art where Maths and Mysticism collide. Its influence is in William Morris wallpaper designs and Salman Rushdie’s “Moors Last Sigh”. Its power is timeless, like that fairy story about a hidden exotic palace opening up suddenly from a door that is hard to enter.
The Alhambra is not a loud imperialist demonstration of power like the Palace of Carlos V beside it. Its a quiet personal demonstration of devotion. It was part of a civil society as sophisticated as any we have today, with sewage and irrigation systems, flushing toilets and baths, libraries and law courts, school and university..and even the first recorded mental hospital, using a fully developed system of psychotherapy based on Sufi psychology, most of which we now know as Jungian depth analysis.
They understood the Soul as we now understand the Psyche. Sickness was simply a question of imbalance. They considered everyone was on a life journey (quest) through contraries towards unity. Consciousness is the guiding force as it orientates the Self like a boat at sea. The Outside and the Inside were considered the same and every step outward was also a step inward with the soul and cosmos as One under the same governing laws. Their techniques towards this end were practical, not speculative.
The Alhambra is built according to these principles of harmony where the world of contraries meet to make a unitary reality. This knowledge is encoded in the structures like the Kings Hall where the rooms alternate light and dark, in the decor as plant patterns expand and contract out of each other until they unite in a final flourish, in the calligraphy that illustrates poetic truths, or in the representative scenes of medieval tales on Paintings so unusual in Islamic art. The sufi architect was a geometer (Muhundis), trained to co-ordinate music, art, Mathematics and philosophy. The overall effect is mesmerizing with rooms infused with light or alternating light with dark, courtyards that seem suspended in air and water reflections that suggest impermanence and the illusory nature of Life. The red lookout towers of the outer fortress walls, the white marble zodiacal lions circling the lip of the inner water fountain, the tricolour sages sitting round a cosmic table in the painting in the Kings Hall –all watch over the various levels of our existence.
The buildings span several generations from 1238 to 1491 but Mohammed V is responsible for the esoteric Lion Palace and Ibn Zamrak is the court adviser whose epigraphic poems adorn the walls. His poem on the lion fountain refers to the Pleiades constellation of stars that rise above the courtyard sky at night. He brought the guitar and toothpaste to Europe, playing his Bedouin love songs that inspired the troubadours. But its western byzantine artists who are responsible for the paintings on the wall, scenes of medieval jousts, Christian and Muslim knights fighting wild animals, a lady and knight together playing Chess. Its possible Ibn Zamrak is the figure buried at Rabita de San Sebastion in Granada, the only sufi shrine in Europe, now a small church.
They built The Alhambra to float in the shape of a boat on an outcrop over the city, and that boat imagery repeats itself throughout- from the upturned hull of Sala de la Barca to the illustrative stucco calligraphy where the letters form the bodies of people standing on a boat, also spelling out the warning, “Only Allah is victor”. Its a curb to human excess and hubris, to imbalance. And its a familiar sufi motif, Mevlavi (1291) uses it in his fable about travellers in a boat at sea called “The Islanders”. Its a reminder of the human situation. “Remember” it says “This is your situation .Do not inflate yourself. You are only human and there is a greater more powerful reality”.
Here it all is then – the insignificant door of entry, the courtyard reflections that delude or clarify, the sages and lions that squat like sentinels, the tourists who journey in as they journey in, the view down to the earth and the city, the view up to the sky and star constellations. The Alhambra holds the balance, equipoised and serene....and ultimately its an experience you have to have for yourself.
1)Central panel divided into 4: Comares Tower reflected in pool of Courtyard of Myrtle bushes with Goldfish : door of entry to Alhambra : Reflections in Palace of lions : Sage painting in Hall of Kings
2)Side panel right. Tourists in Courtyard of Lions.
3)Side panel left. Tourists in Courtyard of Myrtles.
4)Top panel right. Looking up to 7 visible stars of Pleiades from Lion Courtyard.
5)Top panel left : Looking down to Granada from Mexuar Oratory.
