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THE FRAMED LANDSCAPE in ISLAMIC SPAIN and MUGHAL INDIA D Fairchild Ruggles What Is the Difference Between a Landscape and A

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THE FRAMED LANDSCAPE in ISLAMIC SPAIN and MUGHAL INDIA D Fairchild Ruggles What Is the Difference Between a Landscape and A THE FRAMED LANDSCAPE IN ISLAMIC SPAIN AND MUGHAL INDIA D Fairchild Ruggles What is the difference between a landscape and a garden? They are made of the same material elements, and yet a garden is not the same as a landscape. Gardens are typically enclosed, organized (even if the organization mimics wild nature), and they are usually planted with selected plants that are placed there by design. More importantly, gardens often have an intended communicative function, expressing concepts such as political hierarchies and order (as evidenced by the neatly drawn parterres in seventeenth-century French court gardens), wealth (as in the case of topiary gardens, which are expensive to prune and maintain), or even subversive humor (as in Martha Schwartz =s Boston bagel garden). Landscapes are less controlled. They are much larger than gardens and are not so easily contained by walls; yet they, like gardens, are invariably inscribed with human presence in some way, whether it be the grid of farms typical of the American and Canadian midwest or the Great Wall that cuts through the landscape of northern China. Gardens and landscapes are also alike in that they constitute the space beyond the limits of our bodies, the world around us. Architecture, in contrast, does not define this space, because architecture is an extension of the body. It provides a defensive shell that protects us from rain and weather, from predators, and from the enemy outside the walls. I propose that there is a conceptual dichotomy between the body/architecture and gardens/landscape. In this paper, I will discuss how one experiences the other; specifically, I discuss how the body looks at landscape. The gardens and landscapes that most interest me in this respect are Islamic, because in the Islamic cultural context, the acts of looking, seeing, and being seen are carefully controlled. The human body is modestly covered so that it cannot be seen; in urban space the streets are narrow and angled in order to forbid long vistas (the opposite of the European avenue); and windows are often veiled by screens that prevent sunlight from heating interior rooms, but that also allow the inhabitants of a house to look out without themselves being seen. In particular, I want to look at these architectural screens and to examine how they draw attention to the windows that frame the views of gardens, landscape, and the world of human habitation. Islamic gardens are some of the most spectacular, stunningly beautiful, and historic gardens that exist today. Islamic gardens, whether attached to magnificent palaces and recreation pavilions or in the more sombre contexts of tombs and mosques, share many formal characteristics such as four-part divisioning into garden beds, water 2 D Fairchild Ruggles channels coursing through axial pavements, water displayed dynamically in fountains and pools, and rich verdant plantings that offer shade in the summer =s heat as well as the sensory experience of scent, sound, and taste. In the palaces of Islamic Spain (which, together with Portugal was called al-Andalus in Arabic), bronze and stone fountains in the shape of stags, elephants, and lions poured water into large pools and smaller carved basins. More than mere decoration, these zoomorphic sculptures called attention to the precise moment and place that water appeared to enter into the garden. In the hot, dry environment of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula where rain does not fall for six months at a time, the act of obtaining, storing, and distributing water was critically important to the economy and the culture. 1 Fountain sculpture caught the eye Cparticularly in a cultural context where figural imagery was relatively uncommon Cand emphasized the life-giving role of water because, just as the water spewing from the maws of the stone beasts made them appear to move as though alive, the irrigation waters made the arid landscape grow and live. At the Alhambra palace in Granada (Spain), the Court of the Lions (built between 1370-1390 by the Nasrid sultan Muhammad V) had an elaborate system of water distribution and display. The water appeared first in basins at the terminal points of the axes that defined the quadripartite plan of the enclosed courtyard. It then flowed across the floor pavements and down steps toward the central fountain that took the form of a large stone basin held aloft on the haunches of twelve roaring lions, symbols of Nasrid sovereignty that also made allusion to Suleyman (Solomon), the ideal king of the Bible and Quran (Figure 1). 2 The water that flowed plentifully in the Court of the Lions and throughout the Alhambra was piped to the site by aqueducts and channels that drew the water from the nearby Sierra Nevada. After coursing through the various palace reception halls, courtyard gardens, and baths, the water ran downhill where it irrigated the farms and provided drinking water for the inhabitants of the city below. The distribution of water from its high mountain source flowing by gravity downward to the royal palace, farms, and urban commonfolk provides a kind of map of the social and political hierarchy of Granada. 1 D Fairchild Ruggles, "Fountains and Miradors: Architectural Imitation and Ideology among the Taifas," in Künstlerischer Austausch,(Akten des XXVIII Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte Berlin, 15-20 Juli 1992) 3 vols, ed Thomas W Gaehtgens (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993) I: 391-406. 2 Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra, 2nd ed, rev (Sebastopol, Calif: Solipsist Press, 1992), chapter two. The Framed Landscape 3 A similar interest in the choreography of water is seen in the Mughal gardens of South Asia in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The principal court cities, Delhi and Agra, were located on flat dry plains where water collected in still pools and lethargic rivers that bestirred themselves only seasonally in response to the monsoon rains. Nonetheless, water was treated as a dynamic element in moving channels and jets, as if it were copiously abundant and active. For example, in court gardens such as the Anguri Bagh of the Agra Fort (seventeenth century) there was an elaborate scheme of water. The water was brought from a distant source to the Fort by underground pipes and flowed into the pavilion called the Khwabgah, the centermost of the trio called collectively the Khass Mahal, which presided over the garden =s east end (Figure 2). This group of three pavilions stood on a raised marble terrace from which the water was released into the garden by flowing from the Khwabgah =s scallop-edged basin, along a broad channel inlaid with cut marble to resemble the ripples of a stream, and downward into a basin at garden level from which it flowed along channels and into the partitions of the garden (Figure 3). As it fell from terrace to garden, the water imitated the downward rush of water in mountain streams; as it cascaded over a carved decorative panel of recessed niches called a chini khana (literally AChina cabinet @), its spray cooled the air and pleased the senses. These niches might be adorned with either colourful flowers or, at night, flickering oil lamps, and one can imagine the delightful effect of the illusionism and sparkling colour in enhancing the sensory experience of the garden. 4 D Fairchild Ruggles The Framed Landscape 5 6 D Fairchild Ruggles The Framed Landscape 7 In contrast to the cities of the plains, the mountains of Kashmir, where the Mughals went during the summer months to escape the extreme heat, had large quantities of fresh flowing water that could be easily displayed in lively garden fountains and chutes. For example, at the Nishat Bagh (built ca 1620 near Srinagar by the Empress Nur Jahan =s brother, Asaf Khan), there was a waterchute called a chadar that mimicked the rushing water of mountain cas-cades. The chadar consisted of a scalloped or rippled surface that gave texture to the water. The splashing had a pleasing sound, threw a gentle refreshing spray upon the viewer, and served to aerate and thus maintain the purity of the water. 3 The chini khana and chadar were devices used in most Mughal gardens. They were particularly delightful elements in a large set of individual forms that contributed to coherent formal compositions. We can see the function of each part and can read, to some degree, the meaning of how and why the space was organized as it was: there is an evident rational order in the geometrical layout of beds, and water is given special prominence. Clearly the control and display of water had great meaning both in Spain, where no rain falls during the summer months, and in India, where 70% of the annual rain falls in a single monsoon season. In these environments, as in much of the Islamic landscape, water must be collected during the rainy season and managed so that it may be used to irrigate the agri-cultural landscape and palace gardens during the hot arid months. 3 My thanks to Professor Lesley Lovett-Doust of the University of Windsor for this observation on how water movement both reduced the growth of bacteria and lowered the water temperature. 8 D Fairchild Ruggles There is yet another kind of organization here that is difficult to convey through static images such as plans and photographs: it is best experienced by walking through the sites. 4 I am referring to the way that vision is controlled so that what appears to be a walled, entirely self-contained garden may open at points along its outer walls, offering views of landscape. 4 Although I was trained as an art historian to think of art, architecture, and landscape as primarily visual forms, I have begun to think that this eclipses the more complex sensory experience of being in a landscape.
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