AL HAMRA contemporary art projects: MOORISH REMAINS IN SPAIN by Albert F. Calvert

"Moorish remains in Spain: being a brief record of the Arabian conquest of the Peninsula; with a particular account of the Mohammedan architecture and decoration in Cordova, Seville & Toledo" is a book written in 1905 by Albert Frederick Calvert and published in London and New York by John Lane in the year of 1906, is an architectural presentation of the legacy of Islam in Andalusia. Including details of the great mosque in Cordova and also architectural gems from Seville, with illustrations, coloured plates and decoration sketches. The book also includes a historical account of the Muslim presence in Spain, and in the Preface of the book the author said: “The inception of my work on The Alhambra, to which this book is designed to be the companion and complementary volume, was due to the disappointing discovery that no such thing as an even moderately adequate souvenir of the Red Palace of Granada, “that glorious sanctuary of Spain,” was in existence. It was written at a time when I shared the very common delusion that the Alhambra was the only word in a vocabulary of relics which includes such Arabian superlatives as the Mosque at Cordova, the Gates and the Cristo de la Luz of Toledo, and the Alcazar at Seville. I had then to learn that while the Alhambra has rightly been accepted as the last word on Moorish Art in Spain, it must not be regarded as the solitary monument of the splendour and beauty with which the Arabs stamped their virile and artistic personality upon Andalus. In the course of frequent and protracted visits to Spain I came to realise that the Moors were not a one city-nation; they did not exhaust themselves in a single, isolated effort to achieve the sublimely beautiful. Before the Alhambra was conceived in the mind of Mohammed the First of Granada, Toledo had been adorned and lost; Cordova, which for centuries had commanded the admiration of Europe, had paled and waned beside the increasing splendor of Seville; and the "gem of Andalusia" itself had been wrested from the Moor by the victorious Ferdinand III. But each in turn had been redeemed from Gothic tyranny by the art-adoring influence of the Moslem. Their dominion, their politics, and their influence is a tale of a day that is dead, but it survives in the monuments of their Art, which exist to the glory of Spain and the wonder of the world. The Arabian sense of the beautiful sealed itself upon Cordova, and made the city its own; it blended with the joyous spirit of Seville; it forced its impress upon the frowning forehead of Toledo. To see the Alhambra is not to understand the wonders of the Alcazar; the study of Moorish wizardry in Toledo does not reveal, does not even prepare one, for the bewildering cunning of the Mosque in Cordova…”

And in his introduction words, Calvert said: “The conquest of Spain by the Moors*, and the story comprised in the eight centuries during which they wielded sovereignty as a European power, forms a romance that is without parallel in the history of the world. Under Mohammedan rule Spain enjoyed the first and most protracted period of comparative peace and material prosperity she had ever known.”

*The term ‘Moor’, or the Spanish equivalent ‘Moro’, derives from the Latin Maurus and was first used in Roman times to denote the inhabitants of the province of Mauretania, which included large portions of modern-day Algeria and Morocco. Since the Middle Ages the term has been used by Europeans to refer generally to Muslim populations of Morocco and former inhabitants of al-Andalus, absenting any clear ethnic or regional distinctions. The term ‘Moorish’ continues to be used widely in contemporary descriptions of the historic art and architecture of these areas. (Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. ‘Moor’).

Albert Frederick Calvert (1872-1946), was an author, traveller and mining engineer, born on 20 July 1872 at Kentish Town, Middlesex, England, son of John Calvert, mining engineer, and his wife Grace. He was brought up principally by his grandfather John Calvert (1814-1897), a widely travelled mineralogist who claimed extensive gold discoveries in Australia in the 1840s. Leaves from the Calvert Papers (1893) by Albert's secretary G. Hill is a misleading account of his family history.

As explorer, Calvert visited Australia in several times, at first the western territories in 1890, after, during 1891-1892, the southern lands from Lake Gairdner to the upper Murchison River for a two British exploration companies and before the third journey, Calvert circumnavigated Australia collecting material for his book, The Discovery of Australia (London, 1893). Returning to London, he married Florence Holcombe at Kentish Town on 28 March 1894.

In 1895 Calvert landed at Albany. He was joined by a journalist, an artist, his private secretary and a mining engineer. They visited Perth and the eastern goldfields. Calvert visited Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney before returning to London where he published My Fourth Tour in Western Australia (1897).

In 1896 the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia accepted his offer to finance an expedition to search and open a stock route from the Northern Territory to the western goldfields.

As a mining investment consultant and as a prolific writer, for a decade he was obsessed with Western Australia. Described in London as 'Westralia's golden prophet', Calvert was courted, wined and dined, and indulged in yachting, motoring and racing. His West Australian Review, published in London in 1893-94, dealt mainly in mining information, commentaries and forecasts. His fourteen other Australian books covering forests, Aboriginals, pearls, history, minerals and his own travels were cheap, readable and topical, but often careless.

Calvert was managing director of Big Blow Gold Mines and Consolidated Gold Mines of Western Australia on the Pilbarra goldfields, and consulting engineer for the Mallina gold-mines. Management difficulties and a bankruptcy caused by racing losses in 1898 killed his interest in Australia and he turned to a new area: Spain and Africa. Thirty-six books on Spain and Spanish art published by 1924 won him appointment as a knight of the Orders of Alfonso XII and of Isabella the Catholic.

After a visit to Nigeria in 1910, Calvert published two books on that country followed by five on German Africa published during World War I. Initiated as a Freemason in 1893, he became something of an authority on Masonic history in later life, though his work is not now highly regarded. Depending on Masonic help in his last years, Calvert died of cerebro-vascular disease in the Archway Hospital, Islington, London, on 27 June 1946, survived by his wife and four sons.

Other writings of Albert F. Calvert about Muslim art and architecture in Spain are:

Royal palaces of Spain: a historical and descriptive account of the seven principal palaces of the Spanish kings, published in 1909.
Valencia and Murcia, a glance at African Spain, published in 1911.
Toledo, a historical and descriptive account of the "City of generations", published in 1907.
Granada and the Alhambra, a brief description of the ancient city of Granada, with a particular account of the Moorish palace, published in 1907.
The Alhambra: being a brief record of the Arabian conquest of the Peninsula with a particular account of the Mohammedan architecture, published in 1906.
Cordova, a city of the Moors, published in 1907.
Seville, a historical and descriptive account of "the pearl of Andalusia", published in 1907.
Granada, present and bygone, published in 1908.