Architecture of Triumph, Jihad, and Mediterranean Dialogue in the Alhambra: The House of Paintings and Its Mural, Part I

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Abstract On the western side of the palace of the Partal Bajo (Palace of the Portico or of the Summer Retreat), likely built by Muhammad III (r. 1302–9) and located within the palatine city of the Alhambra of Granada (Spain), stands a group of houses that, albeit formally connected, are structurally and chronologically distinct both to each other and to the palace. One of these is typologically unique, in relation to previous Andalusi residential architecture, and considered the smallest surviving Andalusi house. In 1908, outstanding figurative mural paintings were discovered on its second floor, conferring on it the name it still bears: the House of Paintings. This study consists of two articles, the first of which, in the present volume, examines the architecture of the House of Paintings and the history of its restorations, and offers a hypothesis for its original design. The second article in this study (forthcoming in Muqarnas 41) addresses the exceptional figurative paintings on the second floor of the house, including historiographical matters, the history of their visual documentation until today, and the artistic techniques with which they were executed. After an iconographical and iconological analysis of these works, I briefly consider the hypotheses that have been offered regarding the artist responsible for them and their relation to the function of the house itself. I argue that the House of Paintings is an architectural translation of a royal military tent, probably meant to memorialize one of the most resounding victories in the history of the Andalusi jihad, when the Nasrid army defeated a Christian coalition at the Battle of the Vega in 1319 outside Granada, a battle likely visible from what would become known as the House of Paintings. In the mural paintings, this battle is depicted alongside other military and hunting scenes, where reality may be interwoven with allegory. This study thus situates representations of war within an old Mediterranean tradition that seems to have been revived during the Crusades, when Islamic jihad and Christian holy war ideologically confronted one another.