LA ALHAMBRA PALACE AND PAINTERS WHO WERE INSPIRED BY IT

Edouard Gerhardt

The most visited monument in Spain is The Alhambra. It was a palace, a fortress and a citadel, as well as the residence of the Nasrid Sultans and top government officials, court servants and the royal guard.

The name Alhambra comes from an Arabic root which means "red castle", perhaps due to the towers and walls that surround the entire hill which by starlight is silver but by sunlight is transformed into gold. Though there is another more poetic version, evoked by the Moslem analysts who speak of the construction of the Alhambra fortress "by the light of torches", the reflections of which gave the walls their particular coloration.

There is no reference to the Alhambra as being a residence of kings until the 13th century, even though the fortress had existed since the 9th century. The first kings of Granada, the Zirites, had their castles and palaces on the hill of the Albaicin, and nothing remains of them.

The Nasrid ruler Ibn al-Ahmar made Granada his capital. Within the walls he began a palace, which he supplied with running water by diverting the River Darro nearly 8 km to the foot of the hill; water is an integral part of the Alhambra and this engineering feat was Ibn al-Ahmar's greatest contribution.

The founder of the dynasty, Muhammed Al-Ahmar, began with the restoration of the old fortress. His work was completed by his son Muhammed II, whose immediate successors continued with the repairs. The construction of the palaces (called Casa Real Vieja, "old Royal House or Palace") dates back to the 14th century and is the work of two great kings: Yusuf I and Muhammed V. To the first we owe, among others, the "Cuarto de Comares" (Chamber of Comares), the "Puerta de la Justicia" (Gate of Justice), the Baths and some towers. His son, Muhammed V, completed the beautification of the palaces with the "Cuarto de los Leones" (Chamber of the Lions), as well as other rooms and fortifications.

The Alhambra became a Christian court in 1492 when the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabel) conquered the city of Granada. After their conquest of the city, the Reyes Católicos lived for a while in the Alhambra. They restored some rooms and converted the mosque but left the palace structure unaltered. As at Córdoba and Sevilla, it was Emperor Carlos V, their grandson, who wreaked the most insensitive destruction, demolishing a whole wing of rooms in order to build a Renaissance palace.  The remaining Austrian kings did not forget the monument and have left their own more discreet impressions on it.

In 1812 it was taken and occupied by Napoleon's forces. Two decades later the Alhambra's "rediscovery" began, given impetus by the American writer Washington Irving, who set up his study in the empty palace rooms and began to write his marvellously romantic “Tales of the Alhambra” (on sale all over Granada – and good reading amid the gardens and courts). Shortly after its publication, the Spaniards made the Alhambra a national monument and set aside funds for its restoration. This continues to the present day and is now a highly sophisticated project.

During the 18th century and part of the 19th, the Alhambra fell into neglect until 1870 when the Alhambra was declared a national monument. Travellers and romantic artists of all countries had railed against those who scorned the most beautiful of their monuments. Since that date and up to now, the Alhambra, protected, restored, cared for and even improved, has been preserved for the pleasure and admiration of all.

It is currently an artistic-historical monumental group with four clearly distinguishable zones: the Palaces, the military zone or Alcazaba, the city or Medina and the villa of the Generalife, all of them surrounded by woods, trees, gardens, parks and vegetable gardens.   

And here you are some samples of how different painters have inspired on this work of art in the course of time.

Mariano Fortuny

Henri Matisse

Gustavo Simoni

Edouard Gerhardt

Santiago Rusiñol

Edouard Gerhardt

Joaquin Sorolla

Ernst Rudolf

Joaquin Sorolla

Santiago Rusiñol

Adolf Seel

John Singer Sargent

Henri Matisse

Wilhelm Gail

Joaquin Sorolla

Jan Calderwood

Veena Waziri

Childe Hassam

Margaret Murray Cookesley

And I am sure this amazing and stunning monument will keep on inspiring many more artists or no artists as time goes by, don't you agree?

Source:

www.spanish-fiestas.com

www.andalucia.com

www.nerja-capistrano.com