04 Nov 2023 | 05:03am IST
Unveiling the Wonders of the Modo Goano
Vivek Menezes
C
ontroversy overwhelms
all public conversations about the oft-violent and coercive processes by which
the majority of “natives” in the Estado da Índia became Catholic in the 16th
and 17th centuries, but the truth is conversion worked in both directions.
Portugal and Europe – and indeed the “New World” in the Americas – were
dramatically transformed after “the west” co-mingled with “the east” in our
ancient entrepôt on the Mandovi river, where the city we call Old Goa exploded
to twice the size of contemporary London within decades of Alfonso de
Albuquerque’s victory in 1510. That extraordinary cultural history is the main
subject of David de Souza’s stunning, state-of-the-art photographic archive in
The
Jesuits, Goa and the Arts, newly published by the Xavier Centre of
Historical Research and edited by Rinald D’Souza and Anthony da Silva.This is an expensive book with the cover
price of Rs 4300, and I was grateful to receive a review copy because the
images are instantly invaluable, the best ever published of some of the
greatest works of religious art ever made, and painstakingly compiled by an
exceptionally meticulous photographer (see daviddesouza.com). Here is the
history of the East-West encounter wrought in silver, carved in teak and inlaid
with ivory, as Christianity was adroitly converted into an Indian religion.
This is the Modo Goano, described by the historian Cristina Osswald as
“applying to the unique characteristics embodied by the buildings and art of
this region.” Osswald’s essay in the new book summarizes her excellent 2013
book Written in Stone (Goa 1556) in which the architectural historian
António Nunes Pereira wrote this relevant preliminary note: “if the Jesuits in
Europe were puritanically investing in the spiritual content of the spoken word
as a means of battling the Reformation, in the Orient they felt compelled to
work on the level of the senses.” This initiated another remaking, as Pereira
points out: “we know, from the end of the 16th century, Jesuit and European art
also became very fully sensuous and made an extraordinary contribution to the
Baroque. We might ask ourselves, in what way did the Oriental experience – and
not so much the other way round – influence Jesuit art and communication
concepts in Europe? I believe that this history is still unwritten.”Unfortunately, that history remains unwritten. Nonetheless,
thanks to David de Souza and XCHR, we can experience it breathing through the
objects of the times, brought up close like never before. The impact is
awe-inspiring, especially those photographed in situ, where they continue
in service of the unbroken civilizational strand of the Goan communities which
originally commissioned them. The late architectural historian Paulo Varela
Gomes explained so well in his 2011 book Whitewash, Red Stone how the Modo
Goano “has generally been explained with the concept of ‘encounter’ between
East and West [but] this explanation, as all others based on ‘influences’ and
‘contacts’ fails to account for the character and integrity” of Goan [art].” In
fact, “their builders and patrons knew how they wanted it to look and how they
wanted it to be experienced. To anyone with architectural or artistic
sensitivity, these don’t seem to be the end-result of a compromise, but the
affirmative artistic statement of a cultural position.”That world view is analysed usefully in The Jesuits, Goa and
the Arts by the art historian Mónica Esteves Reis: “In every successive
historical layer, Goa’s society shifted and ‘shared’ diverse cultures,
practices, and experiences by creating an identity of its own showing there are
no full stops in history, only long continuities.” She says “that makes today’s
Goa unique. However, it has yet to see the full recognition of its heritage
layers due to numerous factors, mostly arising from its internal politics.
Although heritage, at an intangible level, lives to tell this story, its
material culture continues to face a significant risk of destruction and total
disappearance.” What does David de Souza think, after chasing down this material
culture for almost two years? When I emailed him that question, the Moira-based
photographer responded promptly: “The pearl of great price exists in our back
yard. When you look at Europe, all their treasures are spread out over the
continent. That all these distinct masterpieces exist in a small radius in Goa
is overwhelming. The revolving tabernacle with the life of Christ painted on it
in Azossim is one of a kind in the world. It’s beautifully preserved, largely
because the wood has swollen and stuck, so it has not been rotated for a long while.
I feel that a protocol should be observed when rotating it in the future, or it
will be damaged.”There are many important objects and locations we get to examine
anew in The Jesuits, Goa and the Arts but what stopped me in my tracks
was the silver casket of St Francis Xavier at Bom Jesus. The usual vantage is
from way below, where everything is inadequately illuminated even at mid-day.
But now every detail of this incredible composite artwork can be seen properly:
the intricate silver casket made in India, with an elaborate pedestal altar
rendered by the Florentine engraver Giovanni Battista Foggini (it was donated
by Cosimo III de’Medici), surrounded on all sides by what Osswald calls “a
unique and amazing visual compendium.”
De
Souza told me “the SFX casket is of course the most significant part of the
Basilica. It had been recently restored and I had to get to eye level with it,
using a ladder. It is a very tight space, and getting strobes (flashes) with
modifiers in there to make the ‘plates’ appear 3D meant lighting them in a
certain way. I don’t want to get too technical, but I have photographed many
churches before in Mumbai where there is bas relief, and the experience of
making those come alive helped. However, at 70 years of age, hanging from a
rickety ladder is not what my insurance company advises. In addition, all the
churches in Goa use ‘mixed’ lighting, which is white/yellow light and in many
cases, tube lights which show up with a green cast in photos, (discontinuous
spectrum, minus magenta). For photography to appear without a ‘cast’, it’s
imperative to use a light source that matches daylight in this case, so the
outside and inside balance out. That’s what I had to do.”
