[ { "id": 215411, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "137\n\nSome of the aspects of Christianity introduced by the religious orders, including the Jesuits, are rather disturbing as they harked back to the Dark Ages, with street spectacles of burning heretics and bleeding flagellants. But in all fairness it should be pointed out that the gruesomeness of these spectacles was nothing new to the East. Moreover, there was also a much more positive, Renaissance side to Iberian colonisation, as seen in the unique buildings of the period that have survived in Velha Goa and elsewhere in India.\n\nVelha Goa reached its greatest period of administrative importance and commercial prosperity during the last three decades of the sixteenth century, a fact reflected in the mentioned civic and religious buildings. For this very reason the passage to India and the sojourn in Goa was practically mandatory for many of the great Jesuit missionaries, scientists and artists arriving from Lisbon under the wing of the Portuguese padroado on their way to Macao, China or Japan.\n\nThe Arch of Triumph motif\n\nIt is not possible in this paper to give an adequate survey of what some term Indo-Portuguese churches. Instead I would like to focus on the Arch of Triumph, a characteristic architectural theme used in the decoration of façades that is linked in very interesting ways to that of the retable-façade.\n\nAs will be mentioned later in these pages, it has been argued that a couple of Jesuit church fronts in Goa have arches of triumph as decoration that resemble retables. Moreover, there are some church fronts in Goa that seem to me to have been influenced by the type of façade known as a capilla abierta, or open chapel, used above a main entrance for the display or celebration of the Eucharist. It may be inferred from this that the probable use of retable inspired façades by the Jesuits or others in Goa makes it more plausible that they chose this particular decorative structure for their Church in Macao, albeit in a radically different and more elaborate style. But as will be seen, that style itself was part of a clear process of stylistic development already started in Goa.\n\nThe Arch of Triumph is a well-known structure that was used by Italian Renaissance architects for the decoration of the elevation of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215412, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "138 \n\nbuildings. The Arch of Triumph motif is also found in Renaissance Spain, where the architect Alonso de Vandelvira seems to have been one of its main exponents.10 \n\nThe number of Arches of Triumph appearing at this time on the portals of both Spanish and Portuguese buildings at home and in the colonies is very large. It was particularly favoured in the decoration of church façades. We must remember that this is the period of the Counter-Reformation, or what some prefer to call the Catholic Reformation. Although architects could be flexible in their use of it, its more symbolic connotations for Spaniards and Portuguese in their newly conquered territories were, broadly speaking, mainly twofold: to celebrate their secular victories in battle and to celebrate the triumph of the Church over paganism. \n\nIn Spanish colonial architecture of the sixteenth century it appeared at a time when building decoration had not yet acquired the richer, more elaborate styles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of the buildings in question were often technically solid but with little exterior ornamentation and this particular motif often formed the most striking decorative element of the elevation. \n\nIn respect of Spanish Colonial architecture in South America, Dr. Valerie Fraser of the University of Essex, in the U.K., has brought the motif into disrepute. Dr. Fraser carried out a comparative study of contemporary sources and colonial church façades in South America. She came to the conclusion that in these colonial façades the symbolic meanings previously given to the motif by Italian Renaissance architects, such as triumph over death, etc., was gradually mutated into a symbol of Spanish cultural superiority.\" \n\nThe civilizations the Spanish encountered in the New World had no knowledge of the arch prior to the arrival of Europeans. After the Spanish Conquest their degree of cultural development came to be judged according to Spanish cultural values. Consequently, the employment of the Arch of Triumph in colonial South America served ideological as well as artistic purposes, expressing the perception the conquistadors had of the conquered. \n\nAlthough I cannot discuss the pros and cons of Iberian colonialism", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215413, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "139\n\nhere. I do agree with some of Dr. Fraser's affirmations. Given the fact that arches of triumph also appeared in Portuguese India they are partly relevant to my research and, historical and cultural differences aside, it would be difficult to gloss over certain implications present in her arguments. While keeping these in mind, it is equally important not to lose sight of more purely art-historical questions.\n\nDuring the sixteenth century the Portuguese introduced the Arch of Triumph as a decorative element in the façades of both their civic and religious buildings in India. Since this is a subsidiary contention to my main argument, I cannot but treat it summarily by means of a number of examples.\n\nIndian Urban Examples and Damão's Episcopal Church\n\nTwo of the finest examples showing the employment of arches of triumph in urban architecture in India, the Arch of the Viceroys, Goa, and that of the ruins of Baçaim Fort, will suffice to illustrate my point.\n\nThe first of these, constructed in 1599 under the orders of Dom Francisco da Gama, grandson of Vasco da Gama, formed part of the main city gate leading to the Governor's Palace. It is the work of Julio Simão, a locally born architect of French descent.\n\nSimão employed a subdued rusticated idiom for the articulation of the main structures of his design with an almost inconspicuous use of the classical orders. The decoration of the structure as a whole is sparse, consisting mainly of carved metopes, of pyramids with spheres at the corners of the first storey and the royal coat of arms at the top.\n\nIn the original design a niche above the main entrance arch displayed a statue of Vasco da Gama with an image of St. Catherine in a small attic above. The latter intruded into the pediment below in typical Mannerist fashion.\n\nThe use of rustication was popular amongst certain cinquecento Italian Mannerist architects such as Giulio Romano. In this instance rustication combined with an arch of triumph was evidently intended to convey the victory and strength of the Portuguese crown, although it is obvious that considerations of a purely aesthetic nature must equally", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215414, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "140\n\nhave prompted its choice.\n\nThe Arch of Triumph seen in the entrance to Baçaim Fort is another variant on the motif (Fig. 6). This example is in a style that, without generalising too much, could be said to have belonged to a Late Renaissance Iberian style in architecture. For self-evident reasons specialists have given it the name estilo chão (plain style) for Portuguese buildings and estilo desornamentado (unadorned style) for Spanish ones.\n\n32\n\nThin moulded pilasters frame a rectangle into which the entrance arch is built. The latter was framed by both moulded pilasters and paired Corinthian columns in the round, today missing. Topping the arch is an entablature with a low relief showing the royal arms of Portugal. Above it one may see a niche framed by coupled half-columns for an image of a Christian saint, a feature that differentiates it from a classical Roman Arch. The columns of the niche and the ones below stood on bases decorated with a simple diamond shape.\n\nThese two examples show a characteristic use of the motif in secular structures. But it is its use in religious architecture that is of greater relevance for this discussion. In this respect the Sé or Episcopal Church, Damão, shows one of the most illuminating examples.\n\nConstantino de Bragança, Viceroy of India, captured the Muslim city of Damão, which lies in the southern coast of Gujarat, in 1559. One of the most satisfactory uses of the Arch of Triumph in a plain style in India is to be found in the portal of the city's Sé or Episcopal Church (Fig. 7).\n\nThe charmingly provincial mathematical simplicity of its elevation consists of an acute triangle placed on a rectangle. The triangle in fact delineates a steep gable with a round window, while the rectangle on which it rests is the wall of the main façade. Its ground plan and interior are equally simple, the latter displaying picturesque whitewashed walls.\n\nThe only embellishment on the façade is the large Arch of Triumph, which stands austere in granite in front of the wall. It is quite similar to that of the ruins of Baçaim Fort, except that here paired classical columns on tall pedestals frame only the main arch. On the entablature above flat pilasters and a pediment, united to the lower storey by segmental", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215415, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "-reinfo\n\n141\n\nbrackets, enclose a window. Typical Late Renaissance ornaments and geometric designs of various kinds, such as spheres on pedestals, top the entablature and pediment.\n\nJesuit Churches in India\n\nPerhaps the most ingenious exploitation of the motif in India was by the Jesuit Fathers, whose building schemes form such an important part of the history of art of Colonial Iberian architecture in Asia and the Americas. It can be seen not only on the façade of the now vanished collegiate church of São Paulo in Velha Goa, but also in the Church of their College of São Paulo in Baçaim.\n\nThe Arch of Triumph decoration of their Baçaim church is of great interest for my main argument because at least one art historian has noticed its structural similarities to that of retables. David M. Kowal's recent article implies that not only the façade of the Baçaim collegiate church, but also that of Velha Goa should be so considered and he describes them as \"retable-like.\" Not all art historians would classify any of the church fronts in Portuguese India as retable-façades, including those of the Jesuits, although it is difficult to dismiss D. Kowal's claim for these two churches.13\n\nThe name of the church at Baçaim, built between 1561-1579, is actually Nome de Jesus (Name of Jesus). Its large Arch of Triumph indeed resembles those appearing in a number of Renaissance retable-façades in Southern Spain, such as that of the church of St. Elizabeth, in Seville.\n\nAs far as the Arch of Triumph motif itself is concerned, the most important sixteenth-century example in India may be seen in the Church of São Paulo in Velha Goa. Moreover, one could take 1560, the year when building of the new college and church of São Paulo were initiated, as signalling a more ambitious phase in the Society of Jesus' architectural projects in India.\n\nWhen it was completed in 1572 São Paulo was not only the first major church built by the Jesuits in India, it was also one of the most masterful Portuguese churches in Asia, attesting to the importance that the Jesuit fathers attached to it.15 Its association with St. Francis Xavier", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215416, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "142\n\nhimself, as well as the whole of their missionary activity in Asia and the Far East, including Macao, accounts for this. Sadly, as in Macao's Madre de Deus (which apparently was popularly called St. Paul's because of the Goa college and church), today only a pitiful ruin remains of this artistic and historic treasure, with merely a section of the entrance façade with its stone portal standing (Fig. 8).\n\nThe entangled history of the church's abandonment and final decay need not concern us here. But conveniently for my main arguments, the small section that does survive displays an Arch of Triumph integrated to the wall. Here engaged Corinthian columns, paired and elegantly fluted, standing on bases decorated with diamond-shaped reliefs and carrying a broken entablature frame the half-circular entrance arch. Artistically and technically this feature is close to the sophistication of Italian Renaissance architecture.\n\nSince neither the famous college nor its church survives, Mário Chicó attempted to reconstruct the latter by means of drawings based on contemporary descriptions. He believed it to be the prototype for one of two types of Indo-Portuguese churches. He also convincingly argued that of the two types that of the façade of São Paulo is the closer to Serlio and Italian Renaissance architecture.\n\nIn Chicó's published drawing the façade of the church is shown as having three storeys, plus a pedimented attic. The three storeys are divided into three bays by projecting pilasters with entablatures, with openings for entrances and square and round windows. There is a niche for a titular image in the attic, which is joined to the floors below by the pilasters of the middle bay and by volutes.\n\nIt's an imaginative reconstruction, especially the fact that the façade has comparatively little decoration. It relies for effect on the more purely abstract lines of the design and on the main feature of its decoration, its Arch of Triumph.\n\nThe artistic and symbolic potency of the motif and its application as decoration to the façades of religious architecture was one that was not actually initiated by either the architects or the religious members of the Society of Jesus in Italy, Spain, Portugal or India. Rather it was one that the Jesuits had readily accepted and were able to effectively", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215419, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "145\n\nThe Façade of São Paulo, Macao\n\nThese novel trends in Jesuit architecture in India occurring at about the turn of the century may have reached their apogee in the church of their new college in Macao, opened to the public on Christmas day, 1603 (Figs. 1, 13).\n\nHowever, amongst other important differences with churches in India, here there is no Arch of Triumph as such; there is not even an entrance arch, but straightforward lintel-and-post doorways. Could the reason for its absence be that Portugal never did conquer Macao? This is an attractive conjecture, although a more likely explanation is that the architect or designer of the façade of St. Paul's was simply following St. Charles Borromeo's recommendations to architects concerning the façades of ecclesiastical buildings. In his influential Instructions of 1572, Charles Borromeo recommends the use of lintel and post for entrances of Christian churches instead of the arch, which he considered a pagan structure18. Be that as it may, the idea that the façade of Madre de Deus represents a symbolic arch of triumph of sorts, although one not based directly on an Arch of Triumph but on some other structure, should not be discarded altogether.\n\nApparently, seventeenth-century visitors, many of whom had seen the churches of the Jesuits in Goa, did not find the lack of arches too unusual. What they do imply in their chronicles is that this façade was something particularly surprising within the architecture of the Society of Jesus, not only in Asia but elsewhere. The way they reacted not only to the magnificent interior of the church but also to its façade is significant. In the case of the latter, were they looking at something not merely visually striking but also quite novel? As already surmised at the start of this paper, were they in fact looking at the first retable-façade in China?\n\nThis is not as improbable as it may seem. Today, once certain historical and art-historical associations are made, the surviving façade of the church recalls the outburst of altarpiece construction that took place in the Iberian Peninsula and its overseas colonies from the last decades of the sixteenth century.\n\nUntil the Portuguese revolt of 1640 and the restoration of the House", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215432, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 209, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "158\n\nThe prolific use of symbols for the decoration of the façade and the mystical poetry thus created is typical of the way images were used in the decoration of carved wooden retables. It is a topic that could be elaborated at great length, although unfortunately it is not possible here.\n\nConclusion\n\nIn this talk I have endeavoured to elucidate my main contention concerning the façade of St. Paul's by pointing out the way certain of its principal features relate to retables, such as the uniquely decorative nature of its classical supports and the strongly Eucharistic connotations of its decoration.\n\nThis fact connects it to Spanish retable-façades, a kind of structure not typically Portuguese but also appearing in Portuguese architecture at this time. Moreover, two significant artistic developments in Jesuit architecture in Portuguese India could be said to prefigure the originality of the façade of St. Paul's. Firstly, there is some evidence of incipient retable-façades decorating a few of the churches of the Society of Jesus in India in which the Arch of Triumph is used as principal decorative motif. Although not possible here, Secondly, at the turn of the century the Jesuits in India were willing to admit the use of a more elaborate artistic idiom for the façades of their churches, in contrast to the plain styles preferred in the Iberian Peninsula during the latter half of the sixteenth century.\n\nHopefully my extended inquiry has provided convincing answers to the intriguing similarities I believe exist between the unusual features seen in the façade of St. Paul's and those more characteristic of a retable-façade, even if the façade discussed remains an elusive artistic work sui generis.\n\nNOTES\n\nGuillén-Nuñez, César, “The Relationship of the Façade of the Jesuit Collegiate Church of Madre de Deus, Macao, to Retable-Façades”, M.Phil. Thesis, University College London, 1997. Guillén-Nuñez, C., Macau (Images of Asia), Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1984, pp. 52-3.\n\n2 Vid. Rafael Moreira, “As Formas Artísticas”, in História dos Portugueses no", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]