J. Laurent's photographs of Vejer (1867 & 1879). A critical study

J. LAURENT´S PHOTOGRAPHS OF VEJER (1867 & 1879). A Critical Study Antonio Gámiz Gordo &Antonio Muñoz Rodríguez Contents Foreword by the President of the Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sponsor’s foreword by the Dean of the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cádiz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . First part: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC AND SCENIC LEGACY OF J. LAURENT Antonio Gámiz Gordo 1. Brief notes on the origin of photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. The arrival of photography in Cádiz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. An amateur photographic technique: “wet collodion” . . . . . . . . 4. Biographical notes on J. Laurent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Photographs of Vejer in J. Laurent´s catalogues . . . . . . . . . . . 6. Stereoscopic views of Vejer by J. Laurent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. The digital restoration of J. Laurent’s photographs of Vejer . . Second part: VEJER IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF J. LAURENT Antonio Muñoz Rodríguez 1. Background: origins and historical development of Vejer . . . . 2. Vejer in the time of Laurent: the 19th century . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. The urban structure of Vejer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. The lighthouse at Trafalgar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. View from La Barca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. Views from San Miguel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Las Cobijadas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5 6 7 10 11 14 16 18 20 22 25 26 28 29 36 J. LAURENT´S PHOTOGRAPHS OF VEJER (1867 & 1879). A Critical Study 4 Foreword by the President of the Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País In 1998 the Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del Pais published Memoria de Vejer. Un siglo de imágenes fotográficas en un rincón de Andalucía, (Memories of Vejer. A century of photographs in a corner of Andalusia) by Antonio Muñoz Rodríguez, with the participation of Carmen Gomar Tinoco, which was avidly welcomed both by people from Vejer and others from outside. The 200-odd photographs collected in that publication proved to be valuable aids to understanding and explaining the cultural heritage of Vejer: the events which have marked its history, its celebrities and simple folk, the routine of daily life as well as the streets and corners of the whole municipality. In 2006 we published Five Engravings of Vejer (16th-18th centuries). A critical study, by Antonio Gámiz Gordo, which considers the earliest landscape views of Vejer, dating from the second half of the 16th century. These engravings, based on the drawings of a travelling artist, Joris Hoefnagel, were published first in the monumental work Civitates Orbis Terrarum, and subsequently reprinted many times, as well as much plagiarized in the 17th and 18th centuries. And they spread the image of Vejer amongst the most select circles of Europe and displayed it alongside views of the most prominent cities of the world of those times. These two authors now present us with a new work, on the Vejer of the photographer J. Laurent, using the original negatives or glass plates now conserved in the Archivo Ruíz Vernacci, of the Instituto de Patrimonio Histórico Español (Dirección General de Bellas Artes, Ministerio de Cultura), who have facilitated their digitilization. Here then, we offer, through the generous sponsorship of the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cádiz, J. Laurent´s photographs of Vejer 1867 & 1879.A critical study, with more images to enrich our memory of Vejer de la Frontera and including the very earliest photographs known of the town. Francisco López Sánchez 1. J. Laurent, 1879: Detail of the view taken of Vejer taken from la Barca (nº 2083, Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 7666d) 5 Sponsor’s Foreword: the Dean of the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cádiz. The present work now joins those recently published dedicated to other towns of the region (Seville, Granada etc.) which were photographed by J. Laurent during his lengthy professional career in the second half of the 19th century. His images left on record numerous landscapes, monuments and contemporary buildings throughout the country, and reached an extensive national and international public. Laurent was an astute businessman whose wide range of photographic subjects were taken with a clear eye to their commercial possibilities: local characters, celebrity portraits, museum pieces and so on. The high quality and fidelity of his original glass negatives has made their enlargement to the generously large format used here possible, so allowing us to savour all their rich variety of original detail. It is evident that the special interest of Laurent´s architectural and landscape photographs lies in the incalculable documentary value they provide of the national patrimony. They allow us to recall the changes undergone to hills, buildings, streets and woodland, which in offering a very different appearance to our present surroundings, stir a very deep mixture of curiosity and nostalgia in us, as well as being a rich source of information. In times of change, such as those we live in, they invite us to renewed reflection on the vulnerability of the landscape around us and of its conservation for the generations to come. Following on immediately, the first part of this study contains information and reflections by Antonio Gámiz Gordo, “profesor titular” at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Sevilla, which aim to allow a better understanding of the photographic and scenic legacy of J. Laurent. The second part, by Antonio Muñoz Rodríguez, author of several works on Vejer, gives the background to the photographs studied. Ramón Pico Valimaña 2. A. Gámiz Gordo, 2007: Photograph of Vejer from la Barca 1. Brief notes on the origin of photography. The following images are printed with the sole intervention of light; no pencils have been used1. No document from the past offers us a more accurate testimony of the landscape that we enjoy today than photography. As happened with other technical innovations of the 19th century (the railway, the steam boat, the telegraph.), photography realized an old aspiration: possession of devices that enable the creation of faithful visual impressions of nature. Expressions such as hand-free drawing,memory mirror, or eye memory, all refer to the dream of having access to instruments with which to retain certain visions graphically, which until then could only be performed by the very finest artists2. The interest in the retention of vision, and of being able to record images which were both faithful and permanent precedes the beginning of writing, motivating throughout history many discoveries which brought together scientific, artistic and philosophical knowledge. We hope the following notes of introduction to these antecedents of the techniques and concepts of photography will provide an insight into the photographic legacy of J. Laurent. There were already theories about light and optical effects in Ancient Greece, and among classical authors we can already find theories that refer to the world of images. Plato investigated the subject of shadows in The Republic (book VII), and Aristotle knew about the optical principles of the so called Camera Obscura, used to study eclipses of the sun. Later on Alhazen, a learned 11th century Arab, described how the human eye works by comparing it to the camera obscura3. Around 1480-82, Leonardo da Vinci, influenced by Leon Battista Alberti’s theories of 1435, drew a machine called a “perspectograph” which could be used to look through and draw from a flat and transparent piece of glass, keeping the eye focus fixed on a little hole on a board. Later, Leonardo described the Camera Obscura as a tool to facilitate the action of drawing4:When the images of the brighter objects penetrate through the little hole in a very dark chamber, you will obtain those images in the interior of the chamber in question on a white piece of paper situated close to the hole: you will see all the objects with their own shapes and colours on the piece of paper. Their size will appear reduced. The images will be inverted, and this is due to the intersection of the rays of light. If the images come from a place illuminated by the sun, they will appear as painted on the piece of paper which must be very thin and looked at from behind. In the 16th century Daniel Bárbaro, patron and associate of the architect Andrea Palladio, made interesting comments about the Camera Obscura: On the piece of paper one will see the scene exactly as it really is, with its distances, its colours, its shadows and its movement, the clouds, the reflection of the water, the flights of the birds. Situating the piece of paper on a firm base one can transfer the whole perspective, hatch it and give it a natural colouring. Such comments lead to the conclusion that he used a Camera Obscura to illustrate his famous book De Architectura (1556)5. In the 17th and 18th centuries ingenious optical gadgets were designed which at times were real visual spectacles: the cosmorama, the magic lantern, the phantasmagoria, the Chinese shadows, etc., all of 6 1. TALBOT, W. H.: “Word to the Reader”, The Pencil of Nature, 1844-1846. 2. GÓMEZ MOLINA, J. J. (coord.): Máquinas y herramientas de dibujo, 2002. HOCKNEY, D.: Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, 2001. 3. KURTZ, G. F.: “Origen de un medio gráfico y un arte. Antecedentes, inicio y desarrollo de la fotografía en España”, La fotografía en España de los orígenes al siglo XXI. Summa Artis, Historia General del Arte, t. XLVII, p. 13-190, 2001. GÓMEZ ALONSO, R.: Arqueología de la imagen fílmica: de los orígenes al nacimiento de la fotografía, p. 45, 63, 65, 89, 2002. 4. Essais sur les ouvrages physico-matematiques de Léonard de Vinci, manuscript unpublished until 1797. Quoted in SOUGEZ, M. L.: Historia de la fotografía, 1994. 5. KURTZ, G. F.: “Origen de un medio gráfico y un arte. Antecedentes, inicio y desarrollo de la fotografía en España”, La fotografía en España de los orígenes al siglo XXI. Summa Artis, t. XLVII, p. 37, 2001. First part THE PHOTOGRAPHIC AND SCENIC LEGACY OF J. LAURENT Antonio Gámiz Gordo them predecessors of photography and the cinema6. Towards the end of the 18th century, with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, Wedgwood and Davy, both British, were aware of the photo-sensitivity of certain chemical compounds and performed various experiments in order to obtain “photographic impressions”. They managed to produce images which were silhouettes of leaves and profiles of people using paper covered with silver chloride, but these images were not permanently fixed and would darken when exposed to light. It is generally accepted that the first ever photograph (referred to as a heliograph) was produced about 1826 by the Frenchman Joseph- Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), who in 1829 joined with Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) and managed to perfect the procedure described above with a silver-coated plate, or Daguerreotype. The discovery was the result of a long process of trial and error: first they invented a way to capture objects by using light-sensitive substances, and later on a method to reproduce those images using the Camera Obscura and finally a fixing process through which the images could be made permanent. Although Daguerre is usually considered the father of photography, another of its pioneers was William Henry Fox Talbot7, who between 1833 and 1834 started the development of the negative/positive process which would allow the possibility of making multiple copies, patenting it in 1841. Talbot published photographs for the first time between 1844 and 1846 in his book The Pencil of Nature. The process created by Daguerre did not take long to fall into disuse, due to the fact it only permitted the production of a single, unique image: a daguerreotype. Producing these primitive photographs required a considerable exposure time and as a result most of them are of cities, monuments or architectural details8. Photography brought with it a new and faithful manner of perceiving or representing reality which was quickly adopted to compose truth-like representations of landscape, stimulating everimproving changes in its graphic production, comparable in our own times to the computer revolution. It came to substitute or complement the sketchbook and the camera obscura as a basis for the production of images which would later be published as engravings or lithographs in an envigorated publishing market. Important innovations in the material equipment used to produce the photographic image quickly followed one another and notable was the invention of the wet collodion technique about 1851, which was taken up by Laurent, as we shall see. At any rate, it should be pointed out that Laurent’s archive was a real advance over the series of photographs by such pioneers in Spain as Vigier, Clifford, Masson, Napper and others, this was because of his ability to achieve more than a mere experiment with the new technology, but attained a professional discernment of photography as art9. In some ways, at the beginning, photography was a backward-looking movement, since the pioneers were draughtsmen or artists who were essentially searching for beauty, whilst the new professionals like Laurent wanted perfection, precision and high technical quality10. 7 6. VARIOUS: Memorias de la mirada. Las imágenes como fenómeno cultural en la España contemporánea, 2001. GARÓFANO SÁNCHEZ, R.: Espectáculos visuales del siglo XIX. El pre-cine en Cádiz, 2008. 7. VARIOUS: Huellas de Luz. El Arte y los Experimentos de William Henry Fox Talbot, p. 233, 2001. 8. GÓMEZ-BLANCO PONTES, A. J.: “La imagen fotográfica como expresión narrativa de la ciudad”, La representación de la ciudad. Actas VI Congreso Internacional de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, t. III, p. 103-104, 1996. 9. VIGIER, Vizconde de: Sevilla 1851, 1977. FONTANELLA, L.: Clifford en España. Un fotógrafo en la Corte de Isabel II, 1999. MASSON, L. L.: Álbum fotográfico sevillano, 1858. CATALOGO: Napper y Frith. Un viaje fotográfico por la Iberia del siglo XIX, 2007. 10. MANZANO MARTOS, R. / GAMIZ GORDO, A.: “La arquitectura y el paisaje de Sevilla en las fotografías de J. Laurent”, Sevilla artística y monumental. Fotografías de J. Laurent. 1857-1880, p. 56-91, 2008. 3. Leonardo de Vinci, c. 1480-82: “Perspectograph” (Codex Atlanticus, f. 5r., Ambrosian Library, Milan) 4. A. Dürer, 1525: sketcher of a lute (woodengraving of drawing method invented by himself) 2. The arrival of photography in Cadiz Use of the daguerreotype for views of cities and monuments spread fairly rapidly after 10th November, 1839, the date on which many consider the first of them was taken in Spain11. One of the first views taken in Andalusia of which we are aware is of the cathedral of Seville by Vicente M. Casajús, who was awarded a prize in 1842 by the Sociedad Sevillana de Amigos del País for the introduction in the city of the daguerreotype12. It is also known that about that time in Granada a prize was offered by the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País of that city to produce a daguerreotype. The result is not recorded13. By the 1840s some travellers were already carrying cameras with them on their trips around the Spanish Peninsula, as well as the chemicals needed to obtain photographic plates. One of them was Théophile Gautier, author of the well-known Voyage en Espagne, who visited Cordoba, Granada, Seville and Cadiz with a primitive camera, and photographs of Castilian and Basque cities (but not Andalusian), proves that he used it. In Granada the first daguerreotypes were taken between 1840 and 1842, and about 1842-44, Lerebours published his work Excursions daguerriennes: vues et monuments les plus remarquables du globe, with engravings taken from daguerreotypes, including two views of the Alhambra14. The first notice of daguerreotypes taken at Cadiz dates from September 1841, when the local daily newspaper, El Globo, records two of them of buildings in Cadiz exhibited in the Academia de las Tres Nobles Artes at Cadiz and taken by Diego de Agreda y Domine, a young man from Jerez15. Interesting information about Agreda has been published by Eduardo Pereiras who convincingly suggests that he might have accompanied Gautier on his travels as far as the Alhambra (that he might even have used the camera)16. On the other hand, Gerald Kurtz has published an anonymous daguerreotype now in the Getty Center of California17, of a view of Cadiz taken from a roof-terrace and has speculated on a possible connection between this photograph, Gautier and his travelling companion, E. Piot. Also outstanding in this context is the monumental work Recuerdos y Bellezas de España, by the daguerreotype photographer Francisco Javier 8 11. COLOMA MARTIN, I.: La forma fotográfica. A propósito de la fotografía española desde 1839 a 1939, p. 87-90, 1986. FONTANELLA, L.: “Sevilla pintada en el ojo del observador”, Fotógrafos en la Sevilla del siglo XIX, p. 39, 1994. 12. YAÑEZ POLO, M. A.: V. M. Casajús, introductor de la litografía y el daguerrotipo en Sevilla, 1987. 13. LÓPEZ MONDEJAR, P.: Historia de la fotografía en España, p. 18, 4th ed., 2003. 14. PIÑAR SAMOS, J.: “José García Ayola y los inicios de la fotografía en Granada” José García Ayola, Fotógrafo de Granada (1863-1900), p. 11, 1997; PIÑAR SAMOS, J.: “Granada y la Alhambra en las fotografías de J. Laurent (1857-1887)”, Luz sobre papel. La imagen de Granada y la Alhambra en las fotografías de J. Laurent, p. 16, 2007. 15. GAROFANO SÁNCHEZ, R.: El propagador y eco de la fotografía. Publicaciones pioneras sobre fotografía en España. 1863-64, 2005. 16. PEREIRAS HURTADO, E.: La fotografía en el Jerez del siglo XIX, p. 51-59, 2000. 17. KURTZ, G. F.: “Origen de un medio gráfico y un arte. Antecedentes, inicio y desarrollo de la fotografía en España”, La fotografía en España de los orígenes al siglo XXI. Summa Artis, t. XLVII, p. 135, 2001. 5. B. Monton, 1757: Text on the construction of a camera obscura (Secrets of the liberal arts and mechanics...) 8. Detail from a photograph showing one of the cameras used by J. Laurent (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 6360d) 6. A. Ganot, 1855: A sketcher using a camera obscura (Traité elementaire de physique) 7. 19th century camera obscura made of wood Parcerisa, published from 1839 onwards in twelve volumes, with 588 plates. Some of the views in the Seville and Cadiz volume (1856) include the signature of the photographer F. Leygonier, active in Seville from 1845. This same volume contains views in the province of Cadiz such as Arcos, but none of Vejer. Also worth mentioning are three views of Cadiz by the photographer Louis de Clerq (1859-60), now conserved in the photography collection at the University of Navarra18. In 1986, the Photographic historian Miguel Angel Yañez Polo published a pioneering study of successive photographic studios in Cadiz from 1850 onwards19. Two excellent books published later, Cádiz en la fotografía del siglo XIX (1994) by Rafael Garófano Sánchez and La fotografía en el Jerez del siglo XIX (2000) by Eduardo Pereiras Hurtado, contain much information about the first decades of photography in Cadiz and have been freely drawn from in the text below. In the years between 1840 and 1860 a good number of photographers, many of them travelling, are recorded as working in and around Cádiz: J.W.Halsey from Decenber 1841 (he was in Cadiz for two months), an anonymous young man who came from Paris (1842), S. López Duarte (1842), P. Sardín (1843-47), Madame Fritz (1844), Delamotte (1844-45), C. Fischer (1845-46), J. Pluzanski (1846), Lacarelle (1846), F. Doistua (1846), J. M. Blanco (1848-79) and so on. In 1849 C. G. Wheelhouse was producing calotypes in Cadiz20. Noteworthy around 1850 is González Ragel in Jerez. In 1853 R. Andrey established himself at nº 26 San Nicolas Street, in San Fernando. Around 1856, A. Cosmes was selling Morrocan character studies from nº 7 Novena Street in Cádiz and by 1858, J. Rom was living there in nº 20 Valverde Street. M. Iglesias was established at nº 2 in the Plaza de la Yerba in Jerez around 1858, and in 1859, F. Rodríguez y Rubiales took photographs of the port of Santa María. By 1860 E. Lopez Cembrano at Comedias Street and A. Guravine at nº 13, Ancha Street, were in business in Cadiz and E. Hiecke at Larga Street, in Jerez. The decade 1860 to 1870 saw a further increase in photographic studios in Cadiz, but landscape views by them are rare or little known, since they preferred to concentrate on personal portraits or visiting cards and in this they took over the role previously filled by painters of portrait miniatures21. It is about this time that the first known portraits of people from Vejer start appearing: those of canon Gallardo Sánchez and his family, signed by Rocafull of Cadiz (c.1870), and others of the Vejer immigrant families Sánchez Gomar and Rodríguez Cartilla, signed by Sherling and Shevling of San Salvador (c. 1870-73)22. There were, what is more, many people passing through Gibraltar with photographic equipment; one such person was the Englishman Francis Frith, on his way to Egypt around 1850. Alfred Capel Cure was producing calotypes there around 1851-5223. There were also many other photographers resident there according to the census of 1868: Gustave Dautez, Joseph Porral, Anthony Morillo, Alexander Cavilla and so on24. Noteworthy among them is George Washington Wilson, who sold photographs of Gibraltar, San Roque, Algeciras, Castellar and Jimena as well as others of Granada, Malaga and north Africa, dating from 1868-71 and studied by Rafael Garófano as part of the exhibition Gibraltar, sur de España y Marruecos en la Fotografía Victoriana de G.W. Wilson & Co. (Cadiz, 2005). We cannot close this chapter without mentioning Charles Clifford, a great artist-photographer, who took views of Cadiz and Jerez on the occasion of the visit of Queen Isabel II in 1862, and who was one of the most outstanding photographers of 19th century Spain both for the beauty and the high technical quality of his work25. The other grand 19th century photographer who travelled through the Cadiz region was J. Laurent. He was exceptional for the great technical precision of his work and for an astute business sense which led him to embrace all facets of the interests of the age. He left an immense archive of incalculable historical value. The photographs from his studio 9 18. Our grateful acknowledgements are due to Asunción Domeño and Ignacio Miguéliz for drawing our attention to photographs of Cadiz (many of them by Laurent) in the Photography Collection of the University of Navarra. 19. YAÑEZ POLO, M. A.: “Historia de la fotografía en Andalucía”, Historia de la fotografía en España, 1839-1936, p. 41-45, 1986. 20. KURTZ, G. F.: “Origen de un medio gráfico y un arte. Antecedentes, inicio y desarrollo de la fotografía en España”, La fotografía en España de los orígenes al siglo XXI. Summa Artis, t. XLVII, p. 139, 2001. 21. Between 1860-1870 there were other photographers in Jerez: L. Casiñol, at San Cristóbal nº 12..., and in Cádiz: Boscasa, at San Francisco nº 36; Nal, at Ancha nº 12 (afterwards in partnership with Chicano); Reymundo in the Plaza de Mina nº 12 (from 1867); E. Rocafull, photographed the moon from the San Fernando observatory… 22. MUÑOZ RODRIGUEZ, A. / GOMAR TINOCO, C.: Memoria de Vejer. Un siglo de imágenes fotográficas en un rincón de Andalucía, p. 7, 1998. 23. PARDO GONZÁLEZ, J. C.: “El Gibraltar de 1851-2 en los calotipos de Alfred Capel Cure”, Almoraima, nº 17, abril 1997. 24. GARÓFANO SANCHEZ, R.: Gibraltar, sur de España y Marruecos en la Fotografía Victoriana de G. W. Wilson & Co., p. 49-50, 2005 25. FONTANELLA, L.: La historia de la fotografía en España desde sus orígenes hasta 1900, 1981. FONTANELLA, L.: Clifford en España. Un fotógrafo en la Corte de Isabel II, 1999. 16 Espagne et Portugal. Itinerarie artistique46, which reflects one of their most brilliant moments. The first part contains the above mentioned text by Roswag with a history and description of various towns and villages, and there follows a supplement with a list of about five thousand photographs for sale in 27 x 36cm. format. Among them, on page 265, are listed the four photographs of Vejer for the first time, suggesting a date for them of 1879. Their titles are: 2083. General view taken from La Barca; 2084. General view [in three parts]; 2085. General view; and 2086. Costume of the women of Vejer. In this second edition of 1879, there are listed 145 new photographs of the province of Cadiz as well as five of Gibraltar. Of the capital, Cadiz city itself, there are 76 photographs: 25 views of the city and its monuments; 13 views of the cathedral and its art objects; 7 of the Capuchin convent and its art objects; 24 of the Provincial Museum, its paintings and sculptures and with 7 more various. The remaining 69 photographs are distributed around the province as follows: Jerez, 24; Carthusian monastery, 5; Sanlúcar de Barrameda, 5; Chipiona, 3; Port of Santa María, 6; Puerto Real, 1; Trocadero, 5; San Fernando, 4; Chiclana, 1; Trafalgar, 1; Vejer, 4; Tarifa, 4; Algeciras, 4; San Roque, 2. The numeration o the photographs of locations in and around Vejer gives a clue to the route taken by the photographer: Cadiz, 2081: Chiclana, 2082; Vejer, 2083-2086; Tarifa, 2087-2090; Algeciras, 2091- 2094 & San Roque, 2096-2097. After Laurent’s death in 1886 his successors published new catalogues between the years 189347 and 1898, some of them concentrating on particular regions of Spain, among them Andalusia48. 6. Stereoscopic views of Vejer by J. Laurent Stereoscopic views were usually obtained using a special camera with two lenses set apart at about the same distance as that between human eyes, and which gives two images, almost, but not quite, identical. These two images, mounted side by side on a rigid support such as card, are then placed in a stereoscopic viewer with two lenses and a central separator giving the subject photographed a three dimensional effect to the observer. Stereoscopic views and viewers were invented by Charles Wheatstone and David Brewster and manufactured by Dubosq49. They were first shown in the London Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. In Cadiz, the local newspaper “El Guadalete”, in its number of 7th August, 185250, described the stereoscope as one of the great inventions of the century it allows these daguerreotype images to be viewed, not as a representation of the subject, but as it were, the very subject itself. The same article also gives a description of the viewing apparatus itself: A box constructed as a truncated pyramid, in the upper part are two openings with little tubes similar to those in opera glasses and which contain prismatic lenses. The images are placed 46. LAURENT, J. y CIA.: Nouveau Guide du Touriste en Espagne et Portugal: Itinéraire artistique, Carrera de San Jerónimo 39; París: rue Richelieu 90; Stuttgart: Mr. B. Schlésinger, Königsstrasse 60, text by A. Roswag, Madrid 1879. 47. L’Espagne et le Portugal au point de vue artistique, monumental et pittoresque […] Madrid 1895 y 1896. 48. The volume for Andalusia is: Catalogue des photographies publiées par J. Laurent et Cie. Série C. IV Région. Andalusie, 1896. 49. FERNANDEZ RIVERO, J. A.: Tres dimensiones en la historia de la fotografía. La imagen estereoscópica, p.19-42, 2004. 50. PEREIRAS HURTADO, E.: La fotografía en el Jerez del siglo XIX, p. 70-71, 2000. 21. Different types of viewers for stereoscopic photographs (courtesy of Juan Antonio Fernández Rivero) at the back of the box in such a way that one is aligned with one of the lenses and the other image with the second. An opening on one of the sides of the box allows enough light through to illuminate the images. Interest in these views and a taste for collecting them spread rapidly and they became a great commercial success in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Different viewer designs multiplied, and established names vied to produce better and better relief effects, also introducing colour; for monuments, city views, streets, museums, bullfights and so on. Brewster’s model, simple and without adornments or even a control for focal distance, became one of the most popular throughout Europe between 1860 and 1880. An excellent recently published book Tres dimensiones en la historia de la fotografía. La imagen estereoscópica (Málaga, 2004), furnishes much information on this subject, until now little studied in Spain, giving accounts of the first stereoscopic photographers in Andalusia51, such as Masson (fl. 1853-60), who took views of Cadiz, Jerez and other towns and villages of the area and Georges (fl. 1855-56), or Henri Charles Plaut (fl. 1860). In Cadiz, views and stereoscopes were first offered for sale around 1858 and by 1859 both Rafael Rocafull and Eduardo López Cembrano were established practitioners there, as was Leopoldo Casiñol in Jerez. Among Laurent’s first commercial stereoscopic views are some taken about 185752, which have his stamp and the initials C.S. (probably Charles Soulier). As we have already seen, his 1863 catalogue includes 17 51. FERNANDEZ RIVERO, J. A.: Tres dimensiones en la historia de la fotografía. La imagen estereoscópica, p.120-121, 2004. 52. TEIXIDOR CADENAS, C.: “Fotografías de Sevilla, años 1857-1880, por Juan Laurent”, Sevilla artística y monumental. Fotografías de J. Laurent. 1857-1880, p. 31-36, 2008. 22. J. Laurent, 1879: Vejer. 2083. [Stereoscopic] View taken from la Barca [without photographic retouching] (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 17682) collections of stereoscopic views of Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga…), and in 1869 he added Portugal. It was Laurent’s custom to carry appropriate equipment with him to take stereoscopic views and in many instances he took photographs from the same viewpoint using different cameras. In the second edition of his catalogue, 1879, he marks with an asterisk those photographs also available in stereoscope. Two photographs of Vejer are so marked: The general view taken from San Miguel and the view taken from La Barca. Among the almost one thousand glass-plate negatives in stereoscopic format (13 x 18cm.) conserved in the Archivo Ruiz Vernacci and dating from 1861 to 1882, is the negative of the stereoscopic photograph C-2083 of Vejer taken from La Barca (NIM 176882) reproduced here. The imageframe of this original glass-plate negative (27 x 36cm.) is larger than the final trimmed photograph from the same viewpoint, and includes a path in the foreground. In the Lucio del Valle Collection (Madrid) there is an unpublished stereoscopic view of the Trafalgar lighthouse on leptograph paper (patented by Laurent and his partner) with J. Laurent’s dry-stamp, measuring 27 x 36cm. and with a viewpoint which varies very slightly from photograph C-529, showing as it does the beach and remains of the ancient tower discussed below. 7. The digital restoration of J. Laurent’s photographs of Vejer By good fortune, the original glass plate negatives, with the exception of the stereoscopic views of the Trafalgar lighthouse, are conserved in the Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, which has allowed their scanning exclusively for this publication. It should be pointed out that, for several reasons, some have needed laborious digital retouching. This has been done by Jesús Ponce Quintero, a specialist at Tecnographic S. L. (Seville), who has extensive experience in digital imaging and of working with the well-known “photoshop”. He has been aided in this by Antonio Gámiz Gordo, the author of these lines. The aim has been to respect, as far as possible, the spirit of Laurent’s original, restoring only those damaged parts which affect the perception of the image or which seriously impede its proper valuation and enjoyment. Other imperfections due to age have not been interfered with, giving, as they do, a flavour of authenticity. Documentary evidence from other photographs by Laurent has been useful in this process, as will be seen below. Negative nº 520, of the Trafalgar lighthouse (NIM 2053), shows a pronounced fissuring on the building, suggesting that it was badly cracked at the time or even ruinous, hardly the case in reality. In correcting this false impression by digital means, we have taken as a reference the original positive image conserved in the University of Navarra which is undamaged. There are two negatives of the general view nº 2085, almost identical but which present distinct problems. In one of them (NIM 7669) which is without Laurent’s numeration, some of the layer of collodion bearing images of buildings or those parts of them touching the sky has peeled off, and the skyline, a vital element of the town landscape, has been lost. Laurent often used the technique of masking to obtain a neutral background, but in this instance the masking was carelessly applied and so blocks out details of interest. In the second negative, nº 2085 (NIM 8673), the glass has cracked for several centimetres and the lower right corner lost. We decided to restore the corner by copying this part from the first negative and incorporating it in the second. As may be seen in the reproduction on the cover of the plates folder, we have also retouched small losses in the upper corners without going so far as to distort the image by disguising the inevitable age cracks. The biggest restoration challenge was with one of the negatives of the three-part general view, which includes nº 2084 (NIM 9392), and which is in very bad condition, the worst in fact of those of Vejer. It is badly cracked with much flaking and the foreground is hard to make out. To restore it we have used the two above mentioned negatives of the view 2085 which were taken from the very same viewpoint. With the greatest care we have copied parts from these negatives and incorporated them where necessary in the damaged one. Later on, when attempting to place the views side by side, another grave problem arose; it was found that the first of them (NIM 9392), did not align correctly with the second (NIM 7667), because the frame of the first is smaller than that of the other two. This difference leads to the conclusion that a positive photograph of a composite panoramic view could never have been made using these three Ruiz Vernacci negatives. The problem has been resolved for this publication by using the above mentioned negatives of the view nº 2085 taken from the same viewpoint but with the overall frame enlarged. Although the view nº 2085 also fails to square exactly, we have copied the missing parts and incorporated them to complete the first two parts of nº 2084. With these adjustments made, we can now enjoy the complete sweep of the panorama just as it would have been envisioned by Laurent or his associates. 18 Negative nº 2086 (NIM 7670), has some flaking loss to the image but less serious, and only affecting the wall which forms the background and not the “cobijada”, the clothed Vejer women. The view taken from La Barca, nº 2083 (NIM 7666), has been lightly retouched along the town silhouette or the skyline of the castle where there seems to be loss, but this was to improve the overall quality and nothing has been added. It should be borne in mind that the digital images obtained by scanning glass plate negatives are greyish in tone and do not correspond to the “sepia-copper” colour of 19th century photographs. To counter the coldness of these grey images we have opted to “tinge” them using two tints, and after several trials have chosen pantone 4655C as a base colour along with black. Quite obviously, neither the modern printing process nor the paper we have used bear any relation to those of the 19th century, but nonetheless we have attempted to capture visually the original tone of Laurent’s photographs to stress the individuality of his images, so sensitive to light and the passage of time. Finally, we would like to point out that the design of this publication has been conditioned from the start by the question of graphics; that is, the size of the reproduced images. Some recent books about Laurent combine what is a very useful text but with reproductions much reduced in size from the original photographs (probably for editorial or economic reasons), which sometimes makes it difficult to appreciate the details. The reproductions here are in A-3 format, which approximates to the actual size of Laurent’s originals at about 27 x 36cm. In addition, thanks to the high grade resolution or definition of the originals and modern computer technology, the photographs have been enlarged. In them we can see, and with precision, the landscape of Vejer on another visual scale, replete with those details of great architectural and historical value which we comment on below. 19 23. J. Laurent, 1879: Vejer (Cadiz). 2085. General view [original glass plate negative without photographic retouching] (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 7669) 24. J. Laurent, 1879: Vejer (Cadiz). 2084. General view [original glass plate negative without photographic retouching] (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 9392) 20 1. Background: origin and historical development of Vejer1 Archaeological investigation over the last few decades has placed the origin of the first settlement of Vejer in the late Bronze Age (9th-8th centuries BC), some 2,800 years ago. The primitive defensive nucleus would have been situated on the crest of the hill which in historical times became the first fortified enclosure. Excavations carried out within the historical heart of the town, both in the former Convento de la Concepción and along the walls, have revealed an uninterrupted occupation of the habitat from the late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, passing through distinctive phases of the indigenous peoples, the influence of Greek and Punic colonization and then Romanization2. There are important remains within the boundaries of Vejer surviving from the long-drawn-out period when it was part of the Roman world. Numerous archaeological sites have been located and the existence of continuously inhabited villas and estates can be documented for Patría, Libreros, Manzanete, San Ambrosio and La Oliva among others. Vejer, situated within the highly Romanized Bética region, must have been attached to Asido Caesarina-Medina Sidonia, at least from late Roman times3. Pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis (1st century AD), lists the names of a series of towns and “oppida” within the juridicial district of Cádiz4. Among the tributary strongholds (“oppida”) mentioned, Baesippo (Barbate) is noteworthy. According to some historians the oppidum of Besaro might be identified as Vejer. The phonetic history of this last name would seem to confirm this hypothesis. Besaro, a place-name of Celtic origin, later used in Latin, becomes Bashir in Arabic, Beyer in Romance and the Vejer of today. The literal meaning of the name also supports the hypothesis: “fortified position above a river”. This river might well be the Besilus (Barbate), which flows beneath the hill at Vejer. Although the origins of the Vejer of today date back to the late Bronze Age, being consolidated in Roman times, the walled enclosure and urban scheme of the modern town was shaped in the Islamic period, between the 8th and 10th centuries. There are numerous vestiges and traces which support the hypothesis of an Islamic foundation or re-founding of the urban nucleus of Vejer-Bashir. During this period Vejer was administered within the Cora of Shiduna, the capital being Medina Ibn As-Salim5. There is thus continuity with the Roman and Visigothic periods given that the whole of the Besaro-Vejer district was within, as has been said, the sway of Roman Asido. Although the true extent of the juristriction of the fortress of Besaro is not known as regards the villas, settlements and estates of the district during the Roman-Visigothic period, it is during the Islamic era that Bashir6was established as the centre of a territory or district over which it exercised certain administrative responsibility as may be seen by the numerous hamlets mentioned in the Castilian Repartimiento of 1288 and 1293. The building of its fortifications must have taken place during the waves of invasions between the 8th and 9th centuries when Bashir-Vejer was subject to sieges and sackings by the Normans, who penetrated the interior along the river Barbate, then navigable up to La Barca. But it should also be remembered that the political instability of the Cordoban emirate during the middle of the 9th century would also have necessitated the building of the castle and defensive walls. Second part VEJER IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF J. LAURENT Antonio Muñoz Rodríguez 1. MORILLO CRESPO, A.: Vejer de la Frontera y su comarca. Aportación a su Historia, I, Estudios Gaditanos, 1975. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: Vejer de la Frontera. Los Pueblos de la Provincia de Cádiz, Excma. Diputación Provincial de Cádiz 1996. 2. MOLINA, M.: Informe de la excavación de urgencia realizada en la Iglesia de la Concepción de Vejer, 1990. 3. VEGA GEÁN, E. J. / GARCÍA ROMERO, F. A.: Origen e historia del antiguo obispado asidonense, Cádiz 1997. 4. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, III, 15; SANTOS YANGUAS, N.: Textos para la Historia Antigua, Oviedo 1980. 5. VALLVÉ, J.: La división territorial de la España Musulmana, Madrid 1986. 6. According to professor Bustamente Costa there is certain disagreement between “Bashir” and “Bayin” as the Arabic place-name for Vejer. The first reference to Islamic Vejer (Bashir) is by Ibn Hayyan7. In AD 895 Prince Mutarrif, sent by his father the emir Abd Allah and having captured Seville and other rebel cities and castles, arrived at Medina Ibn as-Salim and Bashir, both also in rebellion, and forced their surrender to the Omayyad emir´s authority. The urban extension of the Vejer fortress in those times is not known, but the fact that it is mentioned at all in an historical context demonstrates that it was already of sufficient importance to have a castle, two skirting defensive walls and, of course, to merit the attention of the Cordoban emir Subsequent references in Arabic date from the period of the Castilian conquest, the final ruling years of the Almohads and the Merinids. In the first half of the 13th century, the last fifty years of Islamic Vejer, the borough possessed extensive territories with numerous hamlets and was rich in grain, vineyards, olive groves and market gardening, as is shown from the late 13th century Castilian Repartimientos8. At the end of the 13th century Vejer was repopulated by the Castilian Crown with colonists from the north and from Andalusian territory captured for Castile. The new settlers received rights and exemptions from tax and tribute as well as land in exchange for service in defence of the town. Noteworthy among these vassalage lands were the well-known Hazas de Suerte, which the Municipal Council would distribute every four years among the new settlers. Part of this communal patrimony survives to this day and is shared out every four years among the townspeople according to common-law usage. Nonetheless, given its status as a free town, the most important event after its conquest and resettlement by the Castilian Crown, was its incorporation by royal decree in 1307 into the lordship of the Guzman family, ancestors of the ducal house of Medina Sidonia. Inclusion in this territorial lordship would make its mark on the history of the town of Vejer until the fall of the ancien régime in the 19th century. Noteworthy in the Christian (post Muslim) Middle Ages (13th -15th centuries) is the consolidation of the entire enclosing walls, with their gates and towers as well as the construction of the first religious buildings: the Mudejar part of the El Salvador church and the hermitages of El Rosario, Veracruz, Santa Catalina (later Merced), Clarinas (later San Francisco), Los Remedios, San Sebastián, San Ambrosio, La Oliva and so on. The first suburbs appeared towards the end of the Middle Ages to the south and east of the settlement on the first hilltop and the first trades streets and districts, muleteers or offal butchers for example, also date from this time. The expansion of Vejer, the creation of new quarters and the enlargement to include development of the second hilltop, started after the conquest of the Sultanate of Granada, which resulted in rapid population growth. From the 16th century onwards the so-called new districts were built and populated: la Hoya, la calle Alta, el Algarrobillo, la Laguna, and new trades quarters and streets were created such as, of the plasterers, the wool dealers, potters, cork workers etc. Expansion over the hillsides and along the watercourse between the two hills (la Hoya) and occupation of the second hill had been completed by the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th centuries. An event of importance to the changing townscape was the earthquake of 12th April, 17739. The epicentre of the quake must have been close to the urban centre and caused considerable damage to buildings in the town and some changes to the street arrangement. Judería Street and its immediate surroundings, and the convent and church de la Concepción were particularly badly damaged10. The earth movement which ruined the Judería (Jewish) zone damaged, as a consequence, the weakest part of the church, the high altar and the south wall. The Municipal Council spent considerable sums on many repair works. Part of this civic effort was dedicated to the damage at the convent de la Concepción and in Judería Street. Four arches or buttresses, to support the cracked side wall and the ceiling of the church which were in a state of collapse, were built about 1775. The Council also underwrote the repair of the Chapter houses, the fountain of Nuestra Señora de la Oliva in La Barca, the demolition of numerous ruinous houses and the repair of streets, including the climbing street of La Barca. 21 9. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: “El terremoto de Vejer de 1773”, I Encuentros de Patrimonio, Historia y Costumbres, Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Vejer 1997. 10. BASALLOTE MUÑOZ, F.: “La Iglesia del convento de Ntra. Sra. de la Concepción”, Revista Janda nº 1, Sociedad de Amigos del País, Vejer 1995. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: “Los Amayas de Vejer y el convento de Ntra. Sra. de la Concepción”, Revista Janda nº 1, Sociedad de Amigos del País, Vejer 1995. 7. ABELLÁN PÉREZ, J.: El Cádiz Islámico a través de los textos, Cádiz 2005. 8. LADERO QUESADA, M. A. / GONZÁLEZ JIMÉNEZ, M.: “La población en la frontera de Gibraltar y el repartimiento de Vejer (SS. XIII y XIV)”, Sevilla 1977. Each of the ecclesiastical institutions was responsible for the cost of their own repairs. In the main church of El Salvador the heavy structure over the old ruined chapel was demolished and a new one built. The convent de la Merced had a new steeple built on the church. The Franciscans and the Conceptionists re-made the roofs and wooden ceilings of their buildings. Unable to restore the ancient hermitage to its original dimensions the Brotherhood de la Veracruz was forced to reduce it to its present size. The former Iglesia Street (now José Castrillón Shelly Street), which used to wind around the church was given its present alignment straight to the Puerta de la Villa. A large part of 17th century Vejer, especially those growing areas of working people and poorer housing, had been given a death-blow by the earthquake. But in spite of the wholesale demolition of housing and extensive repairs, the 17th and 18th century townscape silhouette, scaled and cubist, against the landscape would not have been so very different from the image captured in photographs by Laurent in 1879. As the 18th century passed into the 19th, the slow rise of a new class of landed gentry was accompanied by the departure of the old local nobility from the historical centre and the gradual occupation of their town mansions by the new class. This new class of great landowners now acquired the principal town properties and increasingly invested in enlarging the buildings along traditional lines, with a central patio and service, storage and stabling areas for farm implements and working animals. But at the same time, they brought in fashionable regional styles of the day or modernistic touches such as grilles and balconies which they incorporated harmoniously in the old buildings. Later the 19th century population increase led to the emergence of the community house and patio, which were large houses of traditional character but with multiple family dwellings giving onto a communal patio. 2. Vejer in Laurent´s time: the 19th century Juan Laurent´s studio took photographs of Vejer on at least two occasions, in 1867 and 1879. In 1867 he photographed the newly inaugurated lighthouse at Trafalgar, an important building constructed between 1857 and 1862. Later, about 1879, he took the earliest known photographic images of Vejer: the wide views taken from La Barca, San Miguel and dos Cobijadas. Important political events occurring between these dates in Spain would, without doubt, have been reflected in his commissions as a professional. As Official Royal Photographer he was present at the 1868 revolution which overthrew Queen Isabel II, continued in his Madrid studio during the revolutionary sixties and was witness to the restoration of the monarchy under Alfonso XII in 1875. In Vejer, as in other cities and towns of Spain, the years between 1800 and 1868 saw profound changes and social adjustments as a result of the fall of the ancien régime and the triumph of Liberalism. The years between 1867 and 1875 were especially fraught with political activity in Vejer. The 1868 revolution was followed by sporadic anarchist uprisings with the occupation of estates, the cantonal insurrection of 1872, the proclamation of the 1st Republic and the ousting of the republican municipal government at the end of 1874 which brought about a coup and the restoration of the monarchy in 1875. A brief review of outstanding events in 19th century Vejer will help to put J. Laurent´s photographs in their historical context11. In October, 1805 the townsfolk of Vejer witnessed the infernal spectacle of the Battle of Trafalgar fought against the Royal Navy commanded by Nelson. But only three years later the Napoleonic invasion obliged Spain to ally herself with the British against the French. Vejer was occupied by Napoleonic troops between 1810 & 1812. In the meantime, in Cadiz, the first elective Cortes or parliament, elaborated and approved the first constitution of the kingdom in which the People were declared Sovereign and Fernando VII a constitutional king. Liberal ideas must have been welcome in Vejer, possibly more so than in other towns of the region. The constitution of the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (a liberal association of enlightened reformers) in 1789, and its constant activity over more than a century, would explain the roots of progressive liberalism in the 19th century. Vejer´s first experience of the new constitution was brief. The life of the first constitutional council of 1814 was short-lived, and finished with the return of Fernando VII, who towards the end of the same year, revived absolutism, abolished the constitution and declared null-and-void all legislation enacted by the Cortes of Cádiz. At the beginning of 1820, Lieutenant-Colonel Riego, with a handful of troops, rose and declared against the absolutism of Fernando VII. In 22 11. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: Vejer de la Frontera, Los Pueblos de la Provincia de Cádiz, 1996. 23 25. J. Laurent, 1879: Vejer (Cadiz) nº 2084. General view [from San Miguel] (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM: 9392, 7667 & 7668) 26. A. Gámiz Gordo, 2007: Vejer, general view from San Miguel doing the rounds of several Andalusian towns keeping alive the insurrection against the ancien régime and proposing the re-adoption of the 1812 Constitution, he stopped at Vejer on two occasions, in January and February. Whereas in Medina Sidonia, Riego had encountered only indifference from the population, in Vejer his presence seems to have fired patriotic sentiments, especially amongst the young, who enthusiastically embraced the proclamation of the Constitution. After the invasion of the Holy Alliance in 1823, bringing the return of the ancien régime and the restoration of absolute power to Fernando VII, Spain sank into a period of regression, known as “the ominous decade”, characterized by the persecution of liberal sympathies and the encouragement of informers. In Vejer the seeds of liberalism remained alive, and there were many who participated in conspiratorial meetings against Fernando VII. In 1831, joining in the revolutionary movement of General Torrijos, Vejer became for a few days the centre of the armed rising against absolutism. With the collapse of the insurrection in Cádiz, three hundred patriots from Vejer under General Jurado, harboured troops from there and raised the cry of the Constitution. Between 5th and 8th of March, Vejer, now in the hands of the rebels, declared itself a constitutional municipality. Besieged by the royalists under Captain- General Quesada, Vejer was forced to surrender after some fighting. Many officers were able to escape with their lives, but General Jurado, betrayed by one of his own and gravely wounded, was delivered up to the Captain-General who had him shot by the cemetery walls of San Miguel12. After the death of Fernando VII, and following several attempts at reform, the Carlist Wars and approbation of Isabel II as monarch brought about the triumph of liberalism and a return to the spirit of constitutionalism which finally killed-off the ancien régime. In Vejer, the victory of the new regime was celebrated with popular rejoicing. With the new political order came the founding of political parties, the first elections, constitutional town councils and mayors and the creation of a National Militia, a volunteer corps dedicated to the defence of the Constitution. The triumph of Liberalism brought an end to the old concepts of the state, a society in which inequality was established under the law. The new liberal government was based on the equality of all under new laws with freedom of production and marketing and liberty of expression and movement. Noteworthy among the more important changes was the profound readjustment in ownership of property due to the Dissolution Bills enacted between 1836 and 1854. These in effect nationalized Church and council properties in town and country, and re-offered them for sale in public auctions. In Vejer some ten thousand fanegas (approx. 15,000 acres) of farmland in the dried-up lake, La Janda, was expropriated and municipal land was divided amongst farm labourers. More than 50,000 fanegas of land changed hands, by sale or transfer. The same process of property transfer can be seen with town properties13. As a result of the opening-up of new land for cultivation and its consequent demand for labour, Vejer experienced a gradual increase in population during the middle of the 19th century. Although it could not be said that the area of the town itself grew much, it was now that the one-family residences mentioned above were taken over and converted into multi-family use. This happened with a number of old town mansions, which were now occupied by several families sharing a patio. In spite of the weight of the years, the Vejer photographed by Laurent seems timeless, as if the events of history have hardly touched its people. Even in the small details which reveal the citizens at their everyday tasks, time seems to stand still, as if we have before us a townscape painted in oils. And yet, in every corner one can appreciate the passage of time, from a distant medieval past to the glories of the ancien régime. The very timelessness of Vejer seems but a reflection of the sluggishness with which over history, she has carved out her seat on the two hills. 3. The urban structure of Vejer14 The old town of Vejer is situated on a hill some 180 metres above sealevel, spreading south-east/ north-west over the least steep terrain. The 24 12. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: “La insurrección liberal de Vejer en 1831 y la ejecución del general Jurado: su testamento, codicilo y expediente anejo”. Revista Janda nº 1, Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País, Vejer 1995. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, M.: “Cristóbal Jurado en la Provincia de Cádiz. El Pronunciamiento de 1831 en Vejer.” Revista Janda nº 3, Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País, Vejer 1997 13. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: “La desamortización de la tierra del S. XIX en Vejer de la Frontera”, Revista de Estudios Vejeriegos, Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Vejer, 1983. 14. MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: Patrimonio Cultural de Vejer de la Frontera, Vol. III, Patrimonio Cultural de la Janda Litoral, GDR, Litoral de la Janda, Cádiz 2007. castle sits on the highest point at some 190 metres. From here it dominates to the south and west all the marshes of the river Barbate with the estuary where it flows into the Atlantic, and the wide, open bay stretching between Cape de la Plata and the coast around Trafalgar. To the north, in the angle between points n/w and n/e, lie Conil, Medina Sidonia, Alcalá and the wide plain of La Janda. Below Vejer, at its feet, is the hamlet of La Barca, a river port dating from Roman times but fully operational until the middle of the 18th century. Vejer’s privileged geographical position, as well as its connection with other villages through an extensive network of watchtowers, must have outweighed such disadvantages as, for example, the total absence of spring water within the walled precinct. Although there are springs and streams in the surrounding countryside, the inhabitants of the early enclosure had to invent ways of supplying Vejer itself with water, vital in times of siege, such as those suffered by the town in the Middle Ages. As a consequence of this lack of water there is a network of cisterns in Vejer, some interconnected, with overflows which allowed emptying of excess water after especially heavy rain. Some of the cisterns may date to the early Middle Ages, others would have been built from the 16th century on. Many of them are impressively built of quarried stone blocks, with vaults such as that in the church of El Salvador. Others are built with flagstones and masonry work. Until recent times the whole town of Vejer depended on these cisterns, the water being drawn from them through a central raised parapet or from the corner of a patio. The difficult hilly terrain has, to a large extent, dictated the form of the town, with steep and narrow streets as well as the scarcity of open spaces within the walls. But this setting made a naturally strong defensive position. The north and south sides are the longest with defensive walls and due to the unevenness of the terrain were, in the past, inaccessible. This fact determined the special fortification of both these flanks. At first it would have been in the better-protected south and east sides that the earliest quarters would grow. Later, with the War of Granada and the 25 27. Google Earth, 2008: Aerial view of the town of Vejer showing Laurent’s viewpoints in la Barca and San Miguel 28. F. Rivera Román, 2006: Aerial view of the town of Vejer and the majority of the private buildings of 1879 date back a couple of centuries. The important buildings, such as the castle, the towers, the town walls, the churches and some stately houses, go back to much earlier times, between the 14th and 17th centuries. The view of the town shows buildings of varying heights, encircling a network of narrow, winding streets, at the same time sloping, to adapt to the relief of the two main hills and their river beds. In contrast to the present-day aspect of Vejer, a completely whitewashed town, Laurent’s Vejer was more varied. White-washed walls alternate with unfinished façades; the whiteness contrasts with the greyness, only broken by the white surround to doors and windows. A good many buildings, among them the more outstanding ones, had a coarser, un-whitened finish, without any white surrounds to the doors or windows. The huge, grey Convento de la Concepción is particularly prominent. The majority of the houses and buildings of importance in Vejer in times of Laurent had tiled, two-pitched, roofs. This must have been the preference in Vejer in the 15th to 18th centuries. Two-pitched roofs cover the churches and convents such as the Merced, San Francisco, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, el Rosario as well as numerous private houses. Nevertheless, there are also a considerable number of flat-roofed buildings, including the castle, the House of Tamarón and other new constructions. Some of the flat-roofed buildings are topped with straight or curved adornments, which give them a more stylized appearance. There are 18th century adornments on the castle parapets or the lateral façade of the parish church; they finish in square, triangular or round shapes. The panoramic composition of Vejer is a photomontage of three shots of the town taken by Laurent, as shown in this book. We shall comment on this below. In the first photograph on the left we can see the second of Vejer’s hills. On the highest level are the Cerro, la Laguna and el Algarrobillo districts, from right to left. In the centre, Alta Street, and on the lowest level, La Hoya. Among the buildings, the old Convent of San Francisco stands out on the right. In spite of being the most recent part of Vejer, the buildings are mainly covered with tiled, two-pitched roofs. There is also noticeable attention paid to the exterior of the buildings, and the majority of the houses are plastered and whitewashed. This is comprehensible, since this was where the new middle-class landowners and proprietors of the 19th century set up their country houses in the place of more modest houses and on cheaper land which did not have previous constructions. Even the higher part of the refectory of the old Convent of San Francisco is shown whitewashed. In the lower part of the photo we can see la Hoya with its old sewage and rainwater collector, the pools running directly into the rivers or streams leading to las Quebradas. One part of the two sides of both hills is divided into plots where small crops are grown, and with pita plants as hedges or fences. To the left of the foreground is a threshing floor and path leading to the village. In the second photo of this photomontage is the centre of the old part of Vejer. Three negatives of this central view still survive today. When we compare them we can appreciate the movement of the shadows, as well as the daily tasks of the people that appear in the photos that are 32 38. Postcard from the beginning of the 20th century: View of Vejer from San Miguel. (Photo: “El Trebol” Cadiz) blurred, due to the necessary length of time to achieve the photograph. Among the civil buildings and houses on the top left rises the uppermost part of the residence of the Marqués de Tamarón, with the bakery chimney and its terraced roof and ornamentation on the parapets. However, the most prominent buildings that tower above the rest of the town are the old Convent of la Concepción and the castle. This convent still maintains its original appearance: the four-pitched roof of the main chapel and the two-pitched roof of the aisle. The belfry emerges above the roof. Behind the belfry we can catch sight of the spire and part of the bell tower of the parish church. The church of la Concepción underwent considerable damage in the earthquake of 1773 and there is an enormous crack in the southern wall which was repaired with large iron clamps. We can see three buttresses with arches, built about 1775-76 to prop up the side wall and reduce the pressure due to the semi-spherical vault over the main chapel and the barrel vault over the aisle. To the right of the church stands the castle, and we can distinguish the parapet of the parade ground, the tower, part of the second storey of the accommodation area and the terraced roof with its adornments which still survive. In part of the front wall, which is the western façade, it is possible to see a series of indentations in the parapet, which no longer exist. The overall external appearance of the castle has hardly changed. In the days of Laurent the castle still belonged to the Marquis of Martorell, who was the heir to the Duke of Medina Sidonia. To the right, and near the castle we can see the bell tower of the Church of el Rosario, the two-pitched roof and the tall shape of the old sacristy, no longer in existence, also with a two-pitched roof. In the central part of the photograph or lower line of buildings, is the gorge of Almaraz and Carrión (now the avenue of las Cobijadas). In the doorway of a house is the blurred and ghost-like image of a woman leaning against the door. In the photo taken a little later this woman is seen sitting, or maybe sewing, in the doorway. Behind, in the second row, is Trafalgar Street or Puerta Cerrada with its buildings and crenellated, terraced roofs. In Trafalgar Street there are two women holding a conversation, while a group of idle youngsters can be seen on a terrace. On the hillside below Carrión Street, in the three remaining photographs that we have, Laurent shows a group of three huts with fences around them and a group of labourers building an enclosure for cattle. Laurent’s third photograph from San Miguel completes the profile of the town and the southern outskirts of Vejer, which go from Carrión Street of old times as far as the present-day Avenue of las Cobijadas. The group of houses conceals the hospital and church of San Juan, demolished in 1890, in the top, left-hand part of the photograph. The 33 39. Quijano, circa 1927: Photographic view from San Miguel (coll. Town Council of Vejer de la Frontera) 34 40. J. Laurent, 1879: Detail showing rush huts, from photograph nº 2085. General view [from San Miguel] (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci. NIM 7669d) 35 houses dotted along the edge are modest buildings and the majority of them only appear to be plastered and whitewashed on their lower level and in the door and window surrounds. In the foreground of this panoramic shot we have a detailed view of the huts built with rushes22. These are a unique example of the traditional architecture of the region of Janda, associated with agricultural work, and they must have attracted Laurent’s attention, because all three shots show the detailed construction of a fence covered with a layer of branches or leaves. The rush huts could maybe represent the primitive habitat of the inhabitants of Janda from prehistoric times. They are typically constructed using materials such as wild olive, eucalyptus or pita for the framework, and then covered with rushes, canes and bulrushes. The cyperus rush, which in fact gives its name to this particular type of rustic construction, is a lake-side plant which is found very abundantly around the old lake of La Janda. Generally speaking, the huts are rectangular and with two-pitched roofs, although some are four-pitched. They were used both as a home (bedroom, kitchen, living-room) and for varying agricultural purposes (stables, store houses). They varied in size, between 7m. long, 5m. wide and 3m. high, and there was only one door and no other openings. Laurent photographed different rush huts in Vejer between 1867 and 1879. In the Trafalgar lighthouse photograph one appears alongside the main building. This may have been a hut for animals or tools. Another, smaller one, can be seen next to a telegraph pole near the River Barbate, in the view taken from La Barca. In the central photo of the overall view from San Miguel there is a group of three huts with their rodeo (corral or enclosure) on a threshing-floor or terrace below the ravine of Almaraz. These enclosures were protected with stones or a wooden fence. Three negatives of the same scene still survive, and they seem to have been taken in a brief space of time. They show how men are constructing in this short time an enclosure for sheep, goats or pigs, made from posts or poles of eucalyptus or pita. Construction of the rush huts was carried out by means of an age-old process still used up until recently, and which we shall explain below23. The earth was flattened to make the floor and two vertical wild olive or eucalyptus poles with forked tops called peones (farmhands) were driven into the ground. On top of these was placed horizontally the so-called ridge stick, tied with esparto rope. Around an approximately rectangular perimeter they drove in other poles called muletas or props, on which stakes, tied together, were placed horizontally; these formed the “centring”. From the centring to the ridge stick there was another series of sticks or smaller poles called “ribs”. Following this was the propping up, or placing of the canes, two by two, parallel to the centring and to the props and ribs, the latas. The last stage consists of covering the walls and 22. FLORES, C.: Arquitectura popular española, t. IV, Aguilar, Madrid 1974. 23. JIMÉNEZ HERNÁNDEZ, A.: “Chozos con techumbre de castañuela”, revista Narria, Madrid 1995. 41. J. Laurent, 1879: Detail of huts in photo nº 2085 [different]. General view [from San Miguel] (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 8673d) 42 Postcard from the beginning of the 20th century: Rush hut (private collection Gámiz-Vélez) roof of the hut, from the bottom upwards, with separate superimposed layers of cane, bulrush and rush, using a large, pointed needle and esparto rope. Every two or three years the rushes have to be replaced, which is called “echarle una camisa” (giving it a new coat). 7. Las Cobijadas24 At the time when Laurent arrived in Vejer the idea of legendary Moorish Spain was still alive. The typical clothes of the women of Vejer had aroused the curiosity of European artists and writers since the previous century, that is, ever since Romanticism made everything oriental exotic and linked southern Spain with its Moorish past. As already mentioned, on his way to Gibraltar about 1833, Richard Ford associated Vejer with a Moorish town. On his arrival in Tarifa he observed the women swathed in the protective clothing similar to that of the women of Vejer, and he was fascinated by “their curious and oriental way of using the mantilla, that consisted of showing only one eye; this eye (…) emerges from the dark veil like a star, and its beauty focuses on one point of light”. The romantic travellers associated the attire of the Cobijadas de Vejer or Marchena with the strange Moorish vestiges still to be found in a rather lethargic way in some Andalusian villages. They can be seen in some engravings of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum at the end of the 16th century, as in the case of the views of Granada or Alhama. This must have been the impression made on Laurent by these two women attired in their cloaks and skirts, giving a mysterious and exotic appearance. One of them showed only her left eye, whereas the other had her face partially uncovered, giving a mysterious impression associated with oriental and Moorish cultures. Both women held fans and under their cloaks wore blouses with bows or lace down the front. The hang of their skirts and the train seem to indicate that they used a crinoline underneath, typical at that time. Crinolines could still be seen in women’s dresses at the beginning of the 20th century, but not in those of the “Cobijadas” – women of Vejer during the 1920s. 36 24. ALBARRACÍN, J.: Vestido y adorno de la mujer musulmana de Yebala, CSIC, Madrid 1964. MAS GORROCHATEGUI, A.: “Cobijado vejeriego, almalafa y jaique: precisiones a un equívoco romántico”, revista JANDA nº 1, p. 69-86, Sociedad de Amigos del País, Vejer 1995. MAS GORROCHATEGUI, A. / MUÑOZ RODRÍGUEZ, A.: “El cobijado de Vejer y su leyenda morisca”, revista NARRIA nº 69-70, p. 45-49, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1995. GÁMIZ GORDO, A.: Five Engravings of Vejer (16th – 18th centuries). Critical Study, p. 9-10, 2006. 43 J. Laurent, 1879: nº 2086. Costume of the women from Vejer [cobijadas; without photographic retouching] (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 7670) 37 In spite of the oriental or Moorish legend with which the clothing of the women of Vejer is associated, related to the dress of the women of Chauen, the fact is that the “cobijado” is the same “cloak and skirt” used throughout Castile in the 16th and 17th centuries. The women of Vejer continue to give the same name to the “cobijado” from the 17th to 19th centuries. However, the veil of Vejer, also used by the Castilian women, may have become more deeply rooted in Vejer because of its links with Muslim traditions, and the Arab and Mediterranean world in general. This attire of cloak and skirt was often prohibited, in the first place by the Hapsburg dynasty in the 17th century and later by the Bourbons in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it was nevertheless maintained in the towns of noble estates, such as Vejer, far from the Court and depending on regional authorities that turned a blind eye to things like dress or traditional customs. At the end of the 19th century, the fact that the “cobijado” was still used was so unique that it aroused the imagination of travellers in search of relationships with the eastern world. This “cobijado” was finally prohibited by the Spanish Republic in 1931, due to the apprehension that this clothing might mask crimes and allow criminals to escape. Although the parish priest asked permission from the local authorities to use it in 1937, it was not advisable because of the circumstances of the civil war. When there were efforts to recuperate this tradition in the early 1940s, there was hardly anyone in Vejer who still owned the whole attire of cloak and skirt with the full petticoats: the high cost of living of the post-war years had made it necessary for many women to re-use the material for everyday clothes. 44. Photographs of women in Vejer dressed in “cobijadas”, c. 1925 (private collection A. Muñoz Rodríguez) Cover: Detail from a photograph by J. Laurent (c. 1872) with the photographer himself (or someone in his team) and the wagon-darkroom (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 0741d) Back cover: Detail from a photograph by J. Laurent (c. 1870) with his wagon-darkroom and one of his cameras (Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, NIM 6360d) Publication design and co-ordination: Antonio Gámiz Gordo © Antonio Gámiz Gordo & Antonio Muñoz Rodríguez © Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País © Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cádiz All of J. Laurent’s photographs here (except one, on page 27) are reproduced by courtesy of the Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, Instituto del Patrimonio Histórico Español, Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Bienes Culturales, Ministerio de Cultura. Photographic restoration and preparation: Jesús Ponce Quintero (Tecnographic, S.L.) & Antonio Gámiz Gordo Publisher: Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País Francisco López Sánchez. President Juan Luis Cepero Oliva. Treasurer Juan Begines Galindo. Secretary Francisco Basallote Muñoz Antonio Morillo Crespo Ricardo Ribé Saborido Ángeles María Vélez Melero Francisco José Cepero Sánchez Sponsor: Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cádiz Ramón Pico Valimaña. Dean Pilar Ortega Feliu. Secretary Manuel Narváez Pérez. Treasurer José Ángel González Martínez Technical committee: Gloria Ángeles Franco Rubio. Professor of Modern History (Universidad Complutense, Madrid) Carlos Sánchez Gómez. Architect & Member of the Granada Academy Carlos Teixidor Cadenas. Photography historian and curator of the Archivo Laurent (Madrid) Translation: John Chidley & Tomás Carmichael Alonso ISBN: 978-84-612-6427-8 Legal Deposit: SE-7.086/2008 Typesetting & printing: Tecnographic, S.L. (Sevilla) August, 2008 Acknowledgements We wish to express our sincere thanks to the people and organizations who have made this publication possible or have collaborated in it: Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cádiz, Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País, Archivo Fotográfico Ruiz Vernacci (Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, Ministerio de Cultura), Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Vejer, Fondo Fotográfico de la Universidad de Navarra, Biblioteca Nacional de España (Madrid), Biblioteca Ambrosiana de Milán, Google Earth, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Sevilla, Ramón Pico Valimaña, Faustino Valdés Díaz, Carlos Teixidor Cadenas, Carlos Sánchez Gómez, Gloria Ángeles Franco Rubio, Juan Antonio Fernández Rivero, Asunción Domeño e Ignacio Migueliz, Eduardo Páez López, Juan Carlos Pardo González, Fernando Rivera Román, Francisco Basallote Muñoz, Michael Herrman, John Chidley, Juan Gálvez Aguado, Rita Ponce Quintero, Jesús Ponce Quintero, Tecnographic (Sevilla), Colleagues at work, family and friends. Antonio Gámiz Gordo & Antonio Muñoz Rodríguez This study was completed on the 15th of August, 2008, the feast of Nuestra Señora de la Oliva, Patron of Vejer de la Frontera. Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cádiz Sociedad Vejeriega de Amigos del País