THE Indian High Commission in Guyana has added to their recent surge of cultural presentations, such as high quality contemporary Indian films and a strong  exhibition of selected contemporary Indian paintings, with  now a rare display of large colour photographs of Portugal’s colonial achievement in religious architecture in the fabulous 25th State of the Union of India, Goa.

A piece from the Velha Goa exhibition

Velha Goa was the magnificent capital city the Portuguese began to build in India in the early 16th Century, continuing right through the peak of the baroque era, which occurred in the late 17th Century.

This distinctly original creative feat is what the able photographer, Benoy  K. Behl celebrates in this series of photos that have toured many countries in Europe and Latin America.

The photos are basically straightforward, capturing the façade and inner splendour of several of Goa’s outstanding Christian structures, mainly Catholic, of course, such as The Cathedral of Our Lady of Hope, The Cathedral of Se., and of  St. Francis Assisi, etc.

For those who know nothing about Goa, or never saw books and old photos of this colonial city, this exhibition would be a revelation. But for others who know of Portugal’s foremost cultural role in Europe, of not simply bringing European styles of art to areas it colonised, but also doing the reverse, becoming culturally influenced by various non-western visual styles from the orient, North Africa, and South America, Benoy Behl’s photos of Goa’s religious architecture would appear quite familiar.

What the exhibition does is raise numerous questions about what we are not shown. For example, are the builders of these churches only Europeans? Were there only colonial Portuguese builders and artisans of these structures, which today are officially regarded as simply a part of India’s diverse multi-cultural makeup?

Guests at the exhibition

The Portuguese definitely had intimate relations with countless original Goans, which resulted in the marked Eurasian population of Goa. In Brazil, however, the same miscegenation occurred, but on an even more massive scale, involving not just two races, but three: Native Indian, African, and European.

But the influence of this fusion did not stagnate on a mere biological, racial level, but blossomed into  profoundly original artistic evidence, which today has made Latin American visual and literary art indelibly stamped with the ability to realise and project a distinct geographical yet cosmopolitan identity.

In these photos of Goa’s Baroque architecture, the evidence of Moorish geometric intricacy and the density of tropical nature are easy to identify, because Portugal’s Baroque absorbed both ingredients from its own Moorish colonization and its expansion into South America’s naturally Baroque, excessively wild environment.

The difference, however, between Goa’s and Brazil’s Baroque churches is that the monks and missionaries in Brazil utilised the artistic skills both Native Indians and Africans already had, and this is evident in the amazing Baroque of Mexico, Central America, Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Equador, Venezuela, etc.

In the famous church of Sao Francisco in Brazil, the angels and other figures are miscegenated and non-white Brazilians proclaiming a New World of the Americas, different from the Old World to which Europe, India, Africa, Asia belong;  also, the idea of ‘God’s’ identity is not limited to a censored view where enjoyment of the beauty and necessity of nature’s botanical fruits, flesh, and human sensuality is an ‘original sin’, or evidence of Man’s ‘fallen state’, to be redeemed only by Christ’s sacrifice and suffering, as it seems to be in the Baroque vision of Goa’s architecture.
This is the reason why this exhibition makes us wonder about the lifestyle of Goans the Portuguese originally encountered, and if any evidence of its influence on Goa’s religious architecture may have been bypassed by this talented photographer.

Nevertheless , this photographic exhibition of ‘Velha Goa’ proves just how culturally inclusive the Baroque style has always been, in that what we see of Goa’s churches already display the absorption of non-European artistic and geographical ingredients, reflecting a concern with ‘God’s’ all-seeing eye, and not a vision limited by narrow exclusivity.

It is a diplomatic compliment that the Indian High Commission of Guyana and Guyana’s  Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports have presented such a show, which proves India’s obscure but significant participation in such an important manifestation of mankind’s universal crossroads.