For the next few weeks Angelo da Fonseca, Angela Trindade, Alfred Thomas, Sr Claire and Sr Genevieve will vie for attention at the Archiepiscopal Palace Chapel, Old Goa. They are all Indian artistes who depicted Christian themes and the chapel, once brimming with art, paintings, sculptures and architecture will, for the next few weeks, be home to 33 of their selected works.
Inaugurating the exhibition of Indian Christian Art, Archbishop of Goa and Daman Rev Filipe Neri Ferrão said that the use of the Indian art served as a form that helped non-Christian Indians to connect with the gospel and the gospel message through an easily understandable medium of art thus making the artists true evangelizers, like St Francis Xavier.
“It’s nice to see these artists who tried in their own way to share the medium of Indian art, in one place. I think it appeals to followers and that was their main motive. They wanted to share through a medium the people of this land would be able to grasp better,” Rev Ferrão told Herald.
The exhibition is aimed at promoting the idea of Christianity through the Indian medium, and will remain open till January 4, 2015, the closing day of the Exposition of the Sacred Relics of St Francis Xavier.
During the Exposition of 2004, the chapel, located behind Se Cathedral, had hosted another exhibition that had brought artists from across the country to interpret through their art, gospel stories and passages sent to them in advance. Almost 84 percent of the entries were from non-Christians, a fact that Archbishop Ferrão said promoted inter-religious dialogue.
Fr Paul Kattukaran, co-ordinator, Art-i, (an organization aimed at promoting visual art with special focus on Christian art) said this year’s idea came as an extension of the last. “There is a lot of world Christian Art that people know of. Why not let people see the Indian Christian Art,” he said, pointing to the main exhibit, an Angelo da Fonseca painting titled ‘My Guru’.
“This painting to me depicts Christ as guru. We understand a priest to be a holy man, like a sanysai who is one that leads a simple life and is oriented to contemplation while a Christian is oriented to the world as a giver. This portrait of the Indian Christ is the starting point of a combination of Indian contemplation with the Christian compassion,” said Fr Kattukaran.
The exhibition came about as a result of efforts by the Archdiocesan Commission for Sacred Art and Heritage, Fundação Oriente, De Nobili College, Pune, Xavier Center of Historical Research, Goa and the wife of Angelo Fonseca, Ivy da Fonseca.
