Church Architecture

Church Architecture

The Origination Of Christianity

For the Portuguese of the 15th and 16th centuries, politics and religion went hand in hand. Any conquest or colonization was done with religious zeal. They regarded themselves as the instruments of God on the mission of propagation of the Catholic faith all over the world. The zeal with which they originally started in Europe to check the Mongols and later the Arabs acquired a new significance with the knowledge they obtained of distant lands that each hazardous exploration brought to light. Building The Religious Monuments
Even though the churches were modelled on the European ones they are marked by certain limitations due to climate, availability of materials, labour and artisans. In a place like Goa, where the monsoon is severe, the arcades and large portals that afford little protection were dispensed with. Instead, the use of decorated wooden planks, reducing the size of the entrances, was resorted to. PAINTINGS
The paintings in the churches were done on wooden boards and fixed between panels having floral designs as in the chapel housing the tomb of ST. Xavier, in the arches above the altars in the transept of the Se cathedral and in the nave on either side of the main altar in the church of St. Franscis of Assisi. These paintings are after the Italian school, being poor imitations of the canvas paintings of the west, drawn by the local artists who were supervised and assisted by the Italians. The paintings thus produced show that the Indian artists were working under constraint.

Significance

The Baroque style, often expressed in sinuous frontages, overburdened decorations, with absolute disregard of well laid principles of construction, came to be introduced as a natural reACTION against standardization. Twisted shafts, with broken cornices surmounted by clumsy curved pediments, huge wavy scrolls and flying figures in unimaginable places and exaggerated interior decorations with intricate details of ornamentation emphasized by gilding and accompanied by sculptured figures, were the other salient features of Baroque which had taken a firm grip in Italy spreading to other parts of Europe.

The architects responsible for the construction of the churches at Old Goa looked for inspiration to the Italian architects, some of whom were among the Jesuits that had come to Goa. Imitations of those churches in Rome, which had a touch of the renaissance with baroque confined to the interior, sprang up.

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