Thanks to the monthly MoCA (Museum of Christian Art) heritage walks that explore various churches, chapels and other buildings, religious and non-religious, I find myself coming home afterward to look up architectural jargon I encounter along the way. I can now tell bays from storeys, an apse from a transept, and a barrel vault from a ribbed vault, and I know the Gospel side from the Epistle side of a church.
But some architectural styles are harder to pin down than others; and of course, so many churches took so long to be built, and had renovations, additions, extensions, alterations and redesigns over time that the end-result can be a mish-mash of styles.
The reference books for Catholic religious architecture in the Goan context (and in English) are the handy pocket-sized ‘Churches of Goa’ (2002) by José Pereira,
‘The Parish Churches of Goa: A study of façade architecture’ (2005) by José Lourenço (photographs by Pantaleão Fernandes);
and ‘Whitewash, Red Stone: A History of Church Architecture in Goa’ (2011) by Paulo Varela Gomes.
In his Preface, Pereira states that Goa came to house “the world’s first global style of architecture –one that encompassed all the world’s continents.” He chooses to describe in his book nine churches as examples of Goan architecture that “either closely follow European models in idiom and style, or subject European forms to an Indian aesthetic.”
Gomes goes much further, saying that “the architecture of Goan churches after the 16th century is far less Portuguese-influenced than one would be led to believe. Goan Catholic architecture certainly is a current originated in Europe, there can be no doubt about it. But apart from its European origin, the European inputs that influenced Goan builders and patrons from the 16th to the 20th centuries did not originate from Portugal alone and sometimes did not originate from Portugal at all.
He however cautions against lazy assumptions of East-West “encounters,” “fusions” or “influences” accounting for the “hybrid character” of Goan church architecture (“more often than not, undocumented by building documents”): “It is true that, analysing the buildings in parts, this entablature here, this door frame there, this tower, this vault, one can see Portuguese wall composition, Flemish vaulting or ornament, Bijapuri tower design, Konkan stucco patterns or ornamental designs etc. But the churches as overall buildings did not result from the sum of their constitutive parts. Their builders and patrons knew how they wanted a Catholic church to look and how they wanted it to be experienced. Their understanding, I believe, was not Portuguese, Flemish or Indian but Goan Catholic or Indo-Portuguese, if you like. To anyone with architectural and artistic sensitivity, these churches don’t seem to be the end-result of a compromise but the affirmative artistic statement of a cultural position.”
Gomes argues that the reason that ‘Goan church architecture’ and the most decisive Goan innovations in church design originated in Ilhas (Tiswadi, Divar, Chorão, Jua) was that the islands were religiously controlled by Goans, some of whom were not only priest-architects but also prominent in the contemporary literary and ideological arena. Unsurprisingly, Gomes speculates that “caste issues” might have influenced the choice of the architectural and ornamental solutions of the Goan churches, something that finds no mention in Pereira’s book.
Varela Gomes finds stylistic terms “too narrow to describe all the styles and manners of art and architecture that flourished in Europe and the Europe-influenced world between 1500 and 1800” and so hardly uses them in his book. In fact, in his Glossary, he explains that “given the immense variety of works of art [of the 17th and 18th centuries] called ‘baroque’, the term is nowadays applied to the epoch rather than a style.”
But the others do talk about architectural styles. And it is worthwhile having a working knowledge about them, if only just to be conversant with the vocabulary one comes across when the subject is discussed or written about.
So a word or two about the ‘Neo-Roman’ style, which as its name suggests, purported to revive the style of imperial Rome, a trend that originated in Italy in the 15th century. It has five modes: Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassicism.
The reader could refer to many authoritative sources for more on this, but I’d like to home in on the Mannerist style, largely because as Pereira and Lourenço state, it is the style that prevails in Goa, and, also, because it is so bloody confusing.
If you consult the literature, “the definition of Mannerism… continues to be the subject of debate among art historians.”
The word derives from the Italian ‘maniera’, meaning “style” or “manner.” Pereira calls it “a style of contradictions, an ambiguous mode.” Any subsequent definition gets so jargon-ridden that one needs to translate it into “normal-speak.”
This is how Pereira explains Mannerism [and the ‘translation’ in parentheses is mine]:
“It is rectilinear, but of a fragmented and curvation-prone rectilinearity.” [It has straight lines which tend to ‘misbehave’ by breaking off or curving in places]. “It employs static curved forms like the circle, but tends to use dynamic ones like the oval.” [So circles are static, ovals are dynamic; got it!]
“It both coalesces and fragments” [comes together and breaks up], “is architectonic” [Love that word! It basically means it follows architectural principles] “and decorative; it tends not seldom to enhance empty space and chiaroscuro” [contrasting light and shadow] and to be at times monochromatic and at others, polychromatic.” [single- or many-coloured].
“It also has an embryonic awareness of that peculiarly Baroque quality of concentrating light in its irradiating luminosity, its ‘luminic’ character.” [It radiates or reflects light].
“It is usually not concerned with three-dimensionally massing architectonic forms, but is content to organise them on two-dimensional planes.” [So you’ll find it on façades and portals, not in interiors, generally].
“It makes use of classical orders while it violates their canons.” [A reference to more jargon that you’re welcome to look up (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, Composite) but essentially Mannerism seeks both to establish rules for the elements of the orders to flout those rules].
“It also generally emphasises solid space over empty space” [it doesn’t like to leave a blank canvas, a term called “horror vacui”, a fear of empty space], adding unit to unit in the Renaissance manner, and also often indulges in chiaroscuro.” [I take this to mean its ornamentation is carved in relief, literally causing ‘light and shadow’].
“Mannerism also has a variety of decorative forms, one of which is particularly favoured in Goa -strapwork or Rollwerk. A Flemish invention, Rollwerk blends scrolled leatherwork forms with the stiff pattern of fretted ironwork that compose a scaffolding, adorned with masks, baskets of fruit, vegetal and floral forms, interspersed with a multitude of animal and human figures.” [Self-explanatory, isn’t it?].
To illustrate the Mannerist-style portal, Pereira cites the side entrance of the Santa Monica church (c. 1606) and the main and side entrances of the Se Cathedral (c. 1651).
I think another excellent example would be the stunning façade of Bom Jesus Basilica.
That should be a capital suggestion to finish this column.
(An edited version of this article was published on 02 June 2024 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)
Luis Dias 