https://www.heraldgoa.in/Cafe/Unveiling-the-Wonders-of-the-Modo-Goano/213104
Controversy 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* (Yoda Press) 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 i
