![]() ![]() The Alhambra is Spain’s best-kept secret. These monuments have been the subject of many books over the centuries, but our aim, through the skill and stature of the writers, is to get something much more enlightening, stimulating, even controversial, than straightforward histories or guides. Their names will be familiar to almost everyone: they have achieved iconic stature and are loaded with mythological baggage. ' The Wonders of the World' is a series of books that focuses on some of the world's most famous sites or monuments. Robert Irwin enables us to understand the Alhambra's history fully. Its influence on art, and on literature, orientalist painting and Granada cinemas, Washington Irving and Borges, has been significant. Even its purpose - palace or theological college - is not always clear. ![]() ![]() Its highly sophisticated decoration is not just random but full of hidden meaning. Much of what we see is the invention of later generations. In a stimulating new book in the 'Wonders of the World' series Robert Irwin, Arabist and novelist, examines its engrossing and often mysterious history.īuilt by a bloody and threatened dynasty of Muslim Spain, the Alhambra was preserved as a monument to the triumph of Christianity. The Alhambra, the 'red fort' on its rocky hill above Granada with its fountained courts and gardens and intricate decoration has long been a byword for exotic and melancholy beauty. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |