Wednesday, October 24, 2007

White Splendour - Reaching for the Sky

..........

...........


.......

.........
From a simple mudhouse to a Neo-Roman masterpiece. The imposing Holy Spirit Church (Espirito Santo) at Margao in South Goa features as one of the Baroque Quintet of Goan Churches in Dr.Jose Pereira's book Churches of Goa (Oxford University Press, 2002).
....
Church architecture in Goa has seen many Neo-Roman phases: the Manueline style (Portuguese Gothic), the Mannerist style (with features like Peaked Gables, Pozzoan pediments, templets, Rococo gables and the uniquely Goan cupoliform façades) and later Neo-Gothic and Eclectic styles.
.........
The first church in Margao was founded by the Jesuits in 1564. This primitive structure and others that followed it were destroyed by fire and marauding raiders. The present church, the fifth one, was built in 1675.
...........
It is one of the few churches in Goa that evolve exuberantly from Mannerism to the Baroque, with curviformity, irradiating light and dramatic treatment of space. Its front is divided into five bays and four storeys. The apex is crowned with a splendidly proportioned Pozzoan Pediment flanked by finials in the shape of pots-with-flames. The third storey has a festooned niche of the Pentecostal scene: the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles.
...........
The sequence of pilaster-column is interesting (PC-CPCC-CCPC-CP) and certainly contributes to the monumental appearance of the facade. The central bay has a sequence of Arch-Rectangle-Oculus-Niche, which is commonly seen in many of the old churches of Salcete and Bardez.

...........


No comments: