Viernes el 24 de abril de 2009

I came away from Córdoba’s Mezquita with a fresh disdain for high-church Christianity.

Mezquita is simply the Spanish word for mosque, and it is therefore obviously to Islam that the complex owes much of its heritage. Most of the building is simply a repeating grid of columns, a soothing square regularity extending through its cool, quiet interior. It also has endearing deviations from regularity; the columns have been scavenged and summoned from all corners of the then-known world, and closer inspection reveals that even pillars of stone can be quirky. Within limits, obviously.

Fast forward to the Renaissance (or, as a graffito spotted in Firenze by a friend of mine would have it, ‘Welcome to the Renaissance, bitches’) and the downfall of the Moors in Andalucía, and the Christians are getting twitchy at the fuck-off mosque right in the middle of one of the region’s most bustling metropolises. The solution? Transform the place into a Christian-God–loving cathedral, which they duly slapped right in the middle…of the mosque, not the city. I suppose they deserve some kudos for not razing the whole thing to the ground. But not much.

The Catedral is decked out in especially garish Renaissance garb: a ceiling high enough to accommodate missile tests and dripping with sculptures of saints; as much mahogany as you can eat, carved lustrously into likenesses of do-gooders which are probably significantly less comfortable to sit on than awe-inspiring to gaze upon; a pulpit astride a bull and a comparably-large eagle, more reminiscent of mythology than religion (though I suppose if you use the catch-all term ‘nonsense’, the distinction disappears). The ensemble is a putrid, grandiose monument to the self-confidence of the church; an antidote to elegance with neither function nor form; the religious equivalent of a middle-class house-proud housewife’s house, crammed with tasteless, gilt-edged floral plates, every lurid fuchsia-covered saucer revelling in opulent pointlessness.

The seething decadence of the cathedral is only made the more stark by its minimalist surroundings. The Mezquita feels elevated, somehow mythical in its simplicity: its rows of columns manage to be impressive and yet eschew ostentation.

But it’s obviously all nonsense. It was raised in double-time by an army of unfortunates, extended repeatedly by a sequence of leaders one-upping their forebears and is every inch the symbol of penis-envy and oppression that the church is. So what makes me perceive the mosquey part as a timeless, soul-enriching space experience but revile the Christian bit with equal passion?

There’s probably a little cultural prejudice as I imagine the Catholic head honchos rolling about the vestry in their gold-embroidered knickers wasted off their faces on finest 1538 communion red whilst the peasants till mud in the surrounding fields; arriving in Andalucía, I came equipped with no knowledge of the Moors whatsoever (a situation which has now been rectified—I’ve now seen some of their architecture), let alone scathing preconceptions. Mainly, however, it seems to be a question of aesthetics.

There is something timeless and pure about geometric patterns, a beauty abstracted from cultural context. Self-aggrandising iconography, by contrast, can only be truly appreciated by the believers, even if it does possess independent aesthetic merit. However, I do not deign to explain the vagaries of artistic sense: ultimately this dichotomy is my strange subjectivity. The craftsmanship of the dark, sculpted mahogany is no less worthy than the Moorish carvings, but the latter appeal to me more for some reason.

What surprises me isn’t really anything about either work of architecture, but the strength of my reaction to both taken together; that two pieces of art which have taken comparable effort to produce can have such wildly differing beauties.

Stepping outside, however, will remind you that the worst reality can offer up is significantly uglier than even the most decadent Renaissance cathedral. Souvenir T-shirt, anyone? ‘I went to Córdoba and all I got was this lousy feeling of aesthetic unease induced primarily by shitty souvenir shops.’ (I assume that one was out of stock.)

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