does exist
beyond a doubt.

_Architectural Styles_

Let us now follow the art student in his task. He will determine the
different styles, and, to make the matter clearer, he will employ a
rhetorical figure:

There is an island in the sea. Huge breakers roar on the beach and dash
against the rocky cliffs. Second, third, and fourth breakers of varying
strength and energy race with the first, and are in their turn pushed
relentlessly on from behind until they ripple in dying surf on the
golden sands and boil in white spray in hidden clifts and caves. With
the years that roll along the island is shaped according to the will of
the waves.

Spain, figuratively speaking, is that island, or a peninsula off the
southwestern coast of the Old World, barred from France by the
impassable Pyrenees, and forming the link between Africa and Europe:
the first stepping-stone for the former in its northern march, the last
extremity or the rear-guard of the latter.

The breakers represent the different art movements which, born in
countries where _compact_ nations were fighting energetically for an
existence and for an ideal, flooded with terrible force the civilized
lands of the middle ages, and sought to outdo and conquer their rivals.

These breakers were: from the east, early Christian (both Latin-Lombard
and Byzantine); from the north, Gothic; from the south, Arab, or, to be
more accurate, Moorish. The first two were advocates of one
civilization, the Christian or Occidental; the latter was the
propagandist of another, the Neo-Oriental or Mohammedan.

The Renaissance was but a second or third breaker coming from the east,
which breathed new life into antiquated constructive and decorative
elements by adapting them to a new religion or faith.

Later architectural forms were but the periodical revival or combination
of one or another of the already existing elements.

Spain, thanks to her unique position, was the point where all these
contradictory waves met in a final endeavour to crush their opponents.
In Spain, Byzantine pillars fought against Lombard shafts, and Gothic
pinnacles rose haughtily beside the horseshoe arch and the _arc brise_.
In Spain Christianity grappled with the Islam faith and sent it bleeding
back to the wilds of Africa; in Spain the polygon, circle, and square
struggled for supremacy and lost their personality in the complex
blending of the one with the other, and minarets, cupolas, and spires
comb