Mudéjar
Encyclopedia
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
or Muslims of Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
but were not converted to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. It also denotes a style of Iberian architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
and decoration
Interior design
Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
, particularly of Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
and Castile
Castile (historical region)
A former kingdom, Castile gradually merged with its neighbours to become the Crown of Castile and later the Kingdom of Spain when united with the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre...
, of the 12th to 16th centuries, strongly influenced by Moorish taste and workmanship.
Etymology
The word Mudéjar is a Medieval SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
corruption of the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
word Mudajjan مدجن, meaning "domesticated", in a reference to the Muslims who submitted to the rule of the Christian kings.
Some say it is from the Arabic word مُدّخَر , which means something or someone who's being kept or saved to be used later when needed or at the right time or be being kept or saved because of its high value.
The Treaty of Granada
Treaty of Granada (1491)
The Treaty of Granada was signed and ratified on November 25, 1491 between the sultan of Granada, Muhammad XII and Ferdinand and Isabella, the King and Queen of Castile, León, Aragon and Sicily...
(1491) protected religious and cultural freedoms for Muslims and Jews in the imminent transition from the Emirate of Granada
Emirate of Granada
The Emirate of Granada , also known as the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada , was an emirate established in 1238 following the defeat of Muhammad an-Nasir of the Almohad dynasty by an alliance of Christian kingdoms at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212...
to a Province of Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
. After the fall in the Battle of Granada
Battle of Granada
The Battle of Granada was a siege of the city of Granada fought over a period of months leading up to its surrender on January 2, 1492. The city was captured by the combined forces of Aragon and Castile from the armies of the Muslim Emirate of Granada...
in January of 1492, Mudéjars, unlike the Jews' Alhambra Decree
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
(1492) expulsion, kept the protected religious status along with Catholic converso efforts. However, in the mid-16th century, they were forced to convert to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. From that time, because of suspicions that they were not truly converted, or crypto-Muslims, they were known as Morisco
Morisco
Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...
s. In 1610 those who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled. The distinctive Mudéjar style is still evident in regional architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, as well as in the music, art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, and craft
Craft
A craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
s, especially Hispano-Moresque ware, lustreware pottery which was widely exported across Europe.
Mudéjar style
In erecting RomanesqueRomanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
, Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
, and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
buildings, builders used elements of Islamic art
Islamic art
Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...
and often achieved striking results. Its influence survived into the 17th century.
The Mudéjar style, a symbiosis
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
of techniques and ways of understanding architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
resulting from Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
cultures living side by side, emerged as an architectural style in the 12th century on the Iberian peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
. It is characterised by the use of brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
as the main material. Mudéjar did not involve the creation of new shapes or structures (unlike Gothic or Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
), but the reinterpretation of Western cultural
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
styles through Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic influences.
The dominant geometrical character, distinctly Islamic, emerged conspicuously in the accessory crafts using less expensive materials: elaborate tilework
Tile
A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
, brickwork
Brickwork
Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar to build up brick structures such as walls. Brickwork is also used to finish corners, door, and window openings, etc...
, wood carving
Wood carving
Wood carving is a form of working wood by means of a cutting tool in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object...
, plaster
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
carving, and ornamental metals. To enliven the planar surfaces of wall and floor, Mudéjar style developed complicated tiling
Tiling
Tiling may refer to:* The physical act of laying tiles* The mathematics of tessellations* The compiler optimization of loop tiling* In computing, a tiling window manager, where windows do not overlap...
patterns that have never been surpassed in sophistication. Even after Muslims were no longer employed in architecture, many of the elements they had introduced continued to be incorporated into Spanish architecture, thereby giving it a distinctive appearance. The term Mudejar style was first coined in 1859 by José Amador de los Ríos
José Amador de los Ríos
José Amador de los Ríos y Serrano was a Spanish intellectual, primarily a historian and archaeologist of art and literature. He was a graduate in history of the Complutense University of Madrid....
, an Andalusian
Andalusian people
The Andalusians are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are generally not considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: their own language and an awareness of a presumed...
historian and archeologist.
Historians agree that the Mudéjar style developed in Sahagún, León
Sahagún, Spain
Sahagún is a town in the province of León, Spain. It is the main town of the Leonese section of the Tierra de Campos comarca.Sahagún is notable for containing some of the earliest examples of the mudéjar style of architecture. It lies on the Way of St. James.The initial town arose due to the...
http://www.arteguias.com/mudejar.htm, as an adaptation of architectural and ornamental
Ornament (architecture)
In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
motifs
Motif (art)
In art, a motif is an element of a pattern, an image or part of one, or a theme. A motif may be repeated in a design or composition, often many times, or may just occur once in a work. A motif may be an element in the iconography of a particular subject or type of subject that is seen in other...
(especially through decoration with plaster
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
work and brick). Mudéjar extended to the rest of the Kingdom of León
Kingdom of León
The Kingdom of León was an independent kingdom situated in the northwest region of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded in AD 910 when the Christian princes of Asturias along the northern coast of the peninsula shifted their capital from Oviedo to the city of León...
, Toledo
Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...
, Ávila, Segovia
Segovia
Segovia is a city in Spain, the capital of Segovia Province in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is situated north of Madrid, 30 minutes by high speed train. The municipality counts some 55,500 inhabitants.-Etymology:...
, etc., giving rise to what has been called brick Romanesque style. Centers of Mudéjar art are found in other cities, such as Toro, Cuéllar
Cuéllar
Cuéllar is a large town and local government district in the autonomous community of Castile and León, in Spain. It had a population of 9,841 in 2008....
, Arévalo
Arévalo
Arévalo is a municipality in Spain, it is situated in the province of Ávila and is part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. The name came from Celtic word arevalon, meaning "place near the wall."-Regional importance:...
and Madrigal de las Altas Torres
Madrigal de las Altas Torres
Madrigal de las Altas Torres is a municipality located in the province of Ávila, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2005 census , the municipality has a population of 1,825 inhabitants. In this village, Isabella I of Castille was born in 1451....
.
It became most highly developed mainly in Aragon, especially in Teruel
Teruel
Teruel is a town in Aragon, eastern Spain, and the capital of Teruel Province. It has a population of 34,240 in 2006 making it one of the least populated provincial capitals in the country...
(although also in Zaragoza
Zaragoza
Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...
, Utebo
Utebo
Utebo is a municipality located in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2010 census , the municipality has a population of 17,999 inhabitants....
, Tauste
Tauste
Tauste is a municipality located in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain.Sights include the Mudéjar church of Santa María, begun in the late 13th century and finished in the 14th century. It has an octagonal tower, a Baroque retable and a Renaissance retable of the Coronation of Mary.-Twin...
, Daroca
Daroca
Daroca is a city and municipality in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, situated to the south of the city of Zaragoza. It is the center of a judicial district....
, Calatayud
Calatayud
Calatayud is a city and municipality in the province of Zaragoza in Aragón, Spain lying on the river Jalón, in the midst of the Sistema Ibérico mountain range. It is the second-largest city in the province after the capital, Zaragoza, and the largest town in Aragón other than the three provincial...
, etc.) During the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, many imposing Mudéjar-style towers were built in the city of Teruel, changing the aspect of the city. This distinction has survived to the present day. Mudéjar led to a fusion between the incipient Gothic style
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and the Muslim influences that had been integrated with late Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
. A particularly fine Mudéjar example is the Casa de Pilatos
Casa de Pilatos
La Casa de Pilatos is an Andalusian palace in Seville, Spain, which serves as the permanent residence of the Dukes of Medinaceli. The building is a mixture of Renaissance Italian and Mudéjar Spanish styles...
, built in the early 16th century at Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
.
Seville includes many other examples of Mudéjar style. The Alcázar of Seville
Alcázar of Seville
thumb|right|250px|Baths of Lady María de PadillaThe Alcázar of Seville is a royal palace in Seville, Spain, originally a Moorish fort....
is considered one of the greatest surviving examples of the style. The Alcázar expresses Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
styles, as well as Mudéjar. The Palace originally began as a Moorish fort. Pedro of Castile
Pedro of Castile
Peter , sometimes called "the Cruel" or "the Lawful" , was the king of Castile and León from 1350 to 1369. He was the son of Alfonso XI of Castile and Maria of Portugal, daughter of Afonso IV of Portugal...
continued the Islamic architectural style when he had the palace expanded. The parish church of Santa Catalina (pictured) was built in the 14th century over an old mosque.
Portugal
PortugalPortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
also has examples of Mudéjar art and architecture, although the examples are fewer and the style more simple in decoration than in neighbouring Spain. Mudéjar brick architecture is only found in the apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
of the Church of Castro de Avelãs
Castro de Avelãs
Castro de Avelãs is a Portuguese parish in the municipality of Bragança. The population in 2001 is 483, its density is 34.8/km² and the area is 13.87 km²....
http://www.bragancanet.pt/patrimonio/avelas.htm, near Braganza
Bragança (Portugal)
Bragança is a city and municipality in north-eastern Portugal, capital of district of Bragança, in Alto Trás-os-Montes subregion of Portugal. In 2001, the population of the municipality was 34,774, in an area of 1173.57 km².-History:...
, similar to the prototypical Church of Sahagún
Sahagún
Sahagún can refer to:*Sahagún, Spain, a town and monastery in Léon, Spain. Cradle of the Mudéjar architecture*Sahagún, Córdoba, the second town in population in Córdoba Department, Colombia, also called "The Cultural City of Cordoba"People...
in León. A hybrid gothic-mudéjar style developed also in the Alentejo province in southern Portugal during the 15th–16th centuries, where it overlapped with the manueline
Manueline
The Manueline, or Portuguese late Gothic, is the sumptuous, composite Portuguese style of architectural ornamentation of the first decades of the 16th century, incorporating maritime elements and representations of the discoveries brought from the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral...
style. The windows of the Royal Palace and the Palace of the Counts of Basto in Évora
Évora
Évora is a municipality in Portugal. It has total area of with a population of 55,619 inhabitants. It is the seat of the Évora District and capital of the Alentejo region. The municipality is composed of 19 civil parishes, and is located in Évora District....
are good examples of this style. Decorative arts of Mudéjar inspiration are also found in the tile patterns of churches and palaces, such as the 16th-century tiles, imported from Seville, that decorate the Royal Palace of Sintra
Sintra National Palace
The Sintra National Palace , also called Town Palace is located in the town of Sintra, in Portugal near Lisbon....
. Mudéjar wooden roofs are found in churches in Sintra
Sintra
Sintra is a town within the municipality of Sintra in the Grande Lisboa subregion of Portugal. Owing to its 19th century Romantic architecture and landscapes, becoming a major tourist centre, visited by many day-trippers who travel from the urbanized suburbs and capital of Lisbon.In addition to...
, Caminha
Caminha
Caminha is a municipality in the north-west of Portugal, 21 km north from Viana do Castelo, located in the Viana do Castelo District.The municipality has a total area of 137.4 km² and 16,839 inhabitants ....
, Funchal
Funchal
Funchal is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira. The city has a population of 112,015 and has been the capital of Madeira for more than five centuries.-Etymology:...
, Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
and some other places.
Latin America
Latin America also has examples of Mudéjar art and architecture, for example in CoroSanta Ana de Coro
Coro is the capital of Falcón State and the oldest city in the west of Venezuela.-History:The city was founded on July 26, 1527 by Spanish colonists. The name "Coro" is believed to be an indigenous word meaning "wind".The city had a turbulent history in colonial times and suffered a number of...
a World Heritage Site in Venezuela.
See also
- MozarabMozarabThe Mozarabs were Iberian Christians who lived under Arab Islamic rule in Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and culture...
- Mudéjar Architecture of AragonMudéjar Architecture of AragonMudéjar Architecture of Aragon is an aesthetic trend in the Mudéjar style, which is centered in Aragon and has been recognized in some representative buildings as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO....
, a World Heritage SiteWorld Heritage SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...