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César Guillén-Nuñez Número 12 Setembro/Dezembro de 2003 Number 12 • September/December 2003 output 4 + imagem supplement
MACAU’S RICH HERITAGE AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY
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This supplement 4 of East/West has been sponsored by the Fundação Macau
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Published by the International Institute of Macau Number 12, September/December 2003 This text has been published before in “Macau Focus”, Nº 3, “Macau An Open Air Museum”, December 2001 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Production IIM Graphic Design victor hugo design Printing Tipografia Hung Heng Print Run 1.500 copies
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MACAU’s RICH HERITAGE AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY
ORIENTEOCIDENTE “newsletter” do IIM Instituto Internacional de Macau Número 12, Setembro/Dezembro de 2003 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Produção IIM Design Gráfico victor hugo design Impressão Tipografia Hung Heng Tiragem 1.500 exemplares EASTWEST IIM ”newsletter” Published by the International Institute of Macau Number 12, September/December 2003 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Production IIM Graphic Design victor hugo design Printing Tipografia Hung Heng Print Run 1.500 copies
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César Guillén-Nuñez Art Historian Related books by the author: Macao, (Images of Asia), Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 3rd printing 1998. Macao Streets, Oxford University, Press, Hong Kong, 1999.
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Macau 16th Century
From the moment that Macau was founded as a Portuguese colony in China, in 1557, the city was bound to be unique. The date of the settlement’s founding on a narrow protrusion of land in southern China known as the Macau peninsula is itself significant in historical and cultural terms. At the time Portugal was at the zenith of its Golden Age, while the imperial dynasty which ruled China was the aptly named Ming, or Brilliant Dynasty. From then on the two cultures grew side by side for almost four and a half centuries. Both Portugal and China have had far-reaching and at times violent political changes that would have been unimaginable when the Portuguese first settled in Macau. These and other historical and cultural changes and interactions have all been recorded in the stone forts, colourful buildings and squares, and winding alleys of what is the older, more historically interesting part of the city. They are also present in the casinos and modern high-rises and thoroughfares that have sprouted around the city’s old core over land reclaimed from its outer and inner harbours. Indeed, they are well reflected in the city’s urban plan as a whole. The above-mentioned extensive land reclamation projects at the start and towards the end of the last century added much-needed land and some fine modern highways and structures to the tiny peninsula. Moreover, impressive structures such as the colossal Macau Tower, as well as the abstract black granite monument entitled Doors of Understanding, have recreated the city along more modern lines. Chronologically, we are still too close to this new Macau and it is too early to judge its cultural significance, which nevertheless has much to promise. For this and other related reasons the present article deals mainly with the city that developed under Portuguese administration before its recent political transformation into the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. EASTWEST 5
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THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MACAU’S OWN CULTURE Today we often imagine that the city of Macau as a Portuguese creation developed in the whole of the peninsula from the start. Such assumption is not too unreasonable, as the Macau peninsula only measures some five square kilometers in area. But the truth is even more surprising. For most of its existence the colony was actually squeezed into less than half of that land area. During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the enclave’s limits began about one-third down the landmass of the peninsula from the north, and ended just before its tip in the south. Monte Fortress about 1910
In 1576 the Chinese had already built a barrier across the narrow northern isthmus that linked the peninsula to the island of Heung Shan on the Chinese mainland. It was meant to regulate the entrance of Chinese peasants and others eager to sell their produce to the prospering settlement, and to bar foreigners from crossing over. This barrier became more famous when it was taken over by the Portuguese in 1849 after the assassination of Governor Ferreira do Amaral and renamed Porta do Cerco. Besides the regulations set by Chinese Mandarins, the Portuguese government itself further defined its boundaries. It built a wall with fortifications across the northern end during the seventeenth century and a fort in the south barring entry to unauthorized persons or shipping. During that century Macau’s urban plan was enhanced with several strategically placed forts, much beloved by tourists today. These are the forts of São Paulo, in the heart of the city, and those of Guia, São Francisco, Bom Parto and São Tiago da Barra, poised on hills overlooking the city or the bays on the periphery. These forts alone evoke historic Macau from a cultural point of view. Together with the cosy intimate size of the main squares and the pleasingly decorated churches or civic centers that embellish these squares amidst narrow cobbled streets and alleys, they convey to us the more humanistic Renaissance dimensions of the old town – one envied by the region’s more prosperous modern cities.
The Border Gate about 1900
The small size of the Portuguese enclave is even better understood if we consider some general facts about its population today and in the past. During its heyday in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the number of Portuguese and Eurasian inhabitants and their coloured servants and black slaves was never more than one thousand. The bulk of the population was made up of thousands of Chinese transients. These were mainly fishermen, peasants or small merchants from Guangdong and Fujian provinces in southern China, attracted to the colony because of its growing wealth as a port for trade between China, Japan and the Portuguese empire in Asia. More than four hundred years later, the censuses from the century just ended indicate that Macau’s population has not yet reached the half-million mark, a surprising figure when compared to other cities in Asia. It is now composed almost entirely of resident ethnic Chinese, many of whom have inherited or adopted a westernized way of life derived mainly from Portugal and Hong Kong.
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The smallness of the city’s size during the first three centuries of its existence makes one think that the Chinese decision to confer such a small area was similar to the granting of an even smaller area outside Canton to European merchants in the eighteenth century. However, it would be difficult to dispute the fact that Macau’s status was much more important, even in the eyes of Chinese officials. The Portuguese claimed for centuries that occupation of this small piece of land for trade was granted as a reward for having rid the South China seas of pirates, whence its justification as a legitimate part of the Portuguese empire. Modern Western historians have since the nineteenth century tended to dismiss this claim as a fairy tale. There is indeed the indisputable fact that the city had to pay a sum of money to Chinese officialdom in Canton for the lease of Macau. Whatever the reason, be it the largesse of Ming emperors or the selfconfidence of European empire builders of the Modern Era, the fact is that Macau’s urban plan and its main civil and religious structures began to develop within the peninsula along the distinct lines of a Portuguese town. As it grew the city was gradually divided into three parishes during the second half of the sixteenth century. These can be considered to be its more authentically Portuguese ones. They are the parochial districts of St. Anthony’s, St. Lawrence’s and Sé (Cathedral). Annexed by Governor Ferreira do Amaral, the island of Taipa was also incorporated as a city parish later in the century and bears unique vestiges of its Portuguese character. Following their integration into the old city in the 1860s, the two Chinese villages of St. Lazarus and Mong-Ha became parochial districts early last century. For centuries they had lain outside the city walls and led a traditional Chinese way of life. After their integration, St. Lazarus, the nearer of the two to the old city walls before their demolition, acquired delightful PortugueseMacanese lines. The village of Mong-Ha, near the Porta do Cerco, or Barrier Gate facing the Chinese mainland, developed into and industrial, workingclass district. Today it is believed to be the most densely populated urban area on earth, due largely to the large influx of mainland immigrants during the last decades of the twentieth century.
A street of St. Lazaru’s about 1920
Both the more traditionally Chinese or Portuguese sections of Macau make up one integrated whole today, whatever the evils of overpopulation in such a confined space. Here and there Taoist or Buddhist temples emerge unexpectedly from usually drab tenements or concrete apartment structures, as colourful Portuguese civil buildings, churches or elegant villas do in the more affluent parts of town. In a manner of speaking, Macau has a kind of urban double personality. This is seen in the names of city streets inscribed on blue-and-white tiles, in both Chinese and Portuguese. One name is almost never a translation of the other, and often gives a particular historical insight from the point of view of either its Chinese or Portuguese community. This duality is, however, living proof of Macau’s success as a city where peoples from very different racial, cultural EASTWEST 7
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and social backgrounds have managed to live side by side as a community, despite the odds. Below is a selection of a number of buildings and artistic creations that provide visitors to the city and students of its history with an introduction to its cultural richness and uniqueness.
St.Joseph’s Church, about 1890
St.Anthony’s Church, about 1890
PORTUGUESE RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS
Macau Cathedral about 1910
Macau may have sprung up in southern China, but its uniquely Portuguese character is one that was noticed by European visitors throughout the centuries and is still evident today. One of the main characteristics of Portuguese towns in the sixteenth century in both Portugal and her colonies – the period of Macau’s settlement – is the large number of convents, monasteries, churches and charitable religious institutions which sprang up as distinct landmarks within city districts. As in Iberian settlements in the Americas, the hand of local craftsmen and artists is often discernible in these constructions. In Macau, it is the influence of building techniques and artistic styles or symbols of Chinese origin that may be seen. But architectural ground plans and styles and decoration were those practiced in Portugal at the time that a particular building rose. These often-attractive buildings only reflect the influence that the religious authorities’ division of a city into parishes came to play in the overall layout of Portuguese towns. In the Macau peninsula the church of St. Anthony’s is at the heart of the parish or district of St. Anthony, Portugal’s patron saint, while the parish churches of the Sé (Cathedral), St Lawrence, St. Lazarus and Our Lady of Fatima are main attractions in the parishes of the same name. On the islands, the church of Our Lady of Carmel on Taipa Island and the chuch of St. Francis Xavier on Coloane Island are likewise an integral part of their urban plan, even after the massive rebuilding and modernization accomplished towards the end of the last century.
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These parish churches are complemented by other churches or religious buildings in their particular districts, of which the Jesuit Collegiate church of St. Paul in the parish of St. Anthony is undoubtedly the most famous. It has become a cultural and tourist symbol of such potency that not even the Lisboa Hotel and Casino in our days has been able to replace it. It looks as if the mammoth Observatory Tower in the Outer Harbour will prove equally impotent, unable to eclipse it even after its completion.
ST. PAUL’S, ST. DOMINIC’S, ST. LAWRENCE’S
St.Paul’s Church before fire (c. 1834) by George Chinnery (in Images of Ninettenth-Century Macao”, Comissão Territorial de Macau para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses). (Col. MAM (Macau Art Museum)
Ruins of St.Paul’s Cathedral about 1900
Both the Jesuit Church and College were popularly known as São Paulo, or St. Paul, since at least the seventeenth century. A well-known quote is that of the English merchant Peter Mundy, who wrote from Macau in 1637: “As the Church is Named St. Paules, soe Doe they(that is, the Jesuit fathers), stile themselves Paulists…”. The surviving ruin is still known as St. Paul’s façade today, although the college and church were originally named after Mary, Mother of God, with the church being at first dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. EASTWEST 9
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A contemporary inscription on the left-hand corner of the façade tells us that construction of this particular church was begun in 1602 (there had been a few others previously). But we know from letters written at the time by the Jesuit fathers that brilliant ceremonies leading up to its inauguration took place on Christmas Day of the following year. In artistic terms, it was an event of the greatest significance, and not only for Macau. One might venture to say, without exaggeration, that such a building had never been seen in the whole of China before. Although little or no evidence of it remained after the fatal fire, started in the kitchen after it had been converted into a barracks for Portuguese soldiers, its Baroque exterior and interior decoration were a total novelty. Particularly impressive for both European golden decoration of the nave and altar, made entirely of artistically carved and gilt wood, or “talha”, similar to those found in Portuguese churches of the seventeenth century. The Church of São Domingos, or St. Dominic, owes its origin to three enterprising Spanish friars who arrived in Macau at the end of 1587 from the Spanish colony of Manila. The interesting thing is that, like the Portuguese Dominicans in Lisbon’s Rossio district, they chose one of the most popular quarters, right in the heart of the city, as the site for their novel foundation in the newly emerged colony. Even today, after more than four hundred years, the site of the Dominican convent and church in Macau retains a timeless easy atmosphere, peculiarly Latin, peculiarly Portuguese.
St.Dominic’s Church, about 1890
However, the Dominican convent founded by the Spanish friars consisted of only a small house and chapel. Indeed, in Chinese it became known as the Wooden Planks Temple. After it passed into the hands of Portuguese Dominicans it began to acquire more pleasing architectural lines. The church of St. Dominic’s, like many in Macau, is known better in historical, rather than art-historical terms, as the research of scholars has tended to focus on the history of the city. But one’s general impression by simply examining the structure and decoration is that the building owes much to the eighteenth century. Its graceful three-storey façade displays four ornamental urns and floral decorations that recall that century. The same kind of decoration is used more profusely in the interior, where large spiral columns also adorn main and side altars. It is true that the latter were first made popular in the previous century, although they were equally popular with artists of the Rococo Age. The interior of St. Dominic’s church also recalls that century. The spacious nave with aisles, the large choir overhanging the main entrance, as well as the wooden balustrade with its slender balusters running above the nave all along the cornice: these are features which would be comfortable in an eighteenth century Portuguese church. Stylistically, the Church of São Lourenço, or St. Lawrence, is quite a different kind of structure. Both its exterior façade and interior plan and decoration seduce visitors with that neo-classical style so in vogue in Europe and America in the nineteenth century.
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The Jesuits originally built it as a parish church in 1558. Although we have no knowledge of this first plan, it must have resembled the Late Renaissance or Mannerist architecture of Portugal at the time, probably in a rather rudimentary way. The church has been reconstructed and renovated over the centuries. But by the first half of the nineteenth century it had acquired its present outlines. It was already a pleasant structure consisting of an airy single nave, with twin towers framing the façade at the east end. In 1897 it was imaginatively renovated and given the present classical pilasters in the exterior and interior of the building. The church stands in the vicinity of Macau’s smartest districts. Even governors and their wives used to attend mass there until the period just before Macau’s handover to China. Unfortunately, not all ecclesiastical buildings can be visited and enjoyed in the same way that St. Dominic’s or St. Lawrence’s may be enjoyed today. Some, such as the hermitages of St. Anthony’s or St. Lawrence’s, the Franciscan’s church and monastery, the church of the Santa Casa da Misericordia (charity foundation) and the Jesuit College and Church have been destroyed.
St. Lawrence’s Church about 1980
Senado Square about 1910
Senado Square about 1920
THE LEAL SENADO, THE GOVERNOR’S PALACE, AND THE GUIA LIGHTHOUSE On the whole, public buildings and non-religious architecture have suffered a fate similar to that of their religious counterparts. But it is a measure of Macau’s Lusitanian character that many British and Chinese tourists from neighbouring Hong Kong can still notice their ‘Portugueseness’. When it comes to the architectural history of its historical buildings, the Leal Senado, or Urban Council, is perhaps the most puzzling of all of Macau’s civil establishments. There seems to be no accurate description of it in contemporary Portuguese texts when it was established in the 1580s. EASTWEST 11
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However, the Ou-Mun-Kei-Leok, a mid eighteenth-century book on Macau, mentions it and reproduced a woodcut claiming to represent the Leal Senado. In that image it appears as a very typical Chinese building with a few modifications at the entrance gate indicating that it is a municipal building. If this rather curious illustration is accurate, it would indicate that the Portuguese had initially adapted a Chinese pavilion fronted by a courtyard for the purpose. Such a procedure is not that odd, when we recall that Portuguese missionaries adapted similar pavilions as houses and churches at the beginning of their missionary work in China and Japan in the sixteenth century. But it does seem strange for the practice to have been continued in Macau two hundred years later. King João VI conferred upon it the title of leal, or loyal, in 1810 and it was known as the Leal Senado until a few years ago, when its name was changed to that of Provisional Municipal Chamber of Macau, pending future political changes.
Leal Senado about 17th Century (in “Ou-Mun-Kei-LeoK)
The present Senate, the one that most tourists visit, dates to renovation carried out in the 1870’s, with further alterations earlier last century and quite extensive ones planned at the back of the building towards the end of the century. The alterations gave it the unadorned functional lines of Late Neo-Classical buildings in Portugal. Its portico, entrance steps and patio, however, are ornamented with colourful blue-and-white Portuguese tiles. The decoration of its beautiful library in elaborately carved wood paneling is equally impressive. The paneled main assembly hall next to it includes a small side chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist, Macau’s patron saint.
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A bronze statue by the Portuguese sculptor Maximiano Alves representing the Macanese hero , Colonel Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita, about to draw his sword, once complemented the present Leal Senado. It was placed in front, in the Largo do Senado, or Senate Square, in 1940. However, during the Cultural Revolution leftists viewed the statue as a symbol of colonialism; an angry mob pulled it down with ropes in 1966. Presiding over the old Praia Grande is the building where Macau’s Legislative Council meets. For several decades now it has been housed in a wing of the mansion that used to be one of the governor’s palaces. This particular edifice used to be his office, where courteous staff attended to his every need and sometimes those of the public.
Senado Square 1955
With salmon-pink walls and three frontal balconies on the first floor displaying slender Corinthian columns, the Governor’s Palace has dominated Praia Grande since 1884. It was formerly a private mansion belonging to the widow of the Viscount of Cercal, who sold it to the government. Its frontal decoration was actually more elegant than the one we see today, the result of restoration during the twentieth century. For over a hundred years it was the most wonderful sight that met travellers eyes as they disembarked or walked among the large trees of Praia Grande. In recent years a rather forbidding gate has been constructed across its main yard as part of a modernization scheme aiming to give the building a more official look, more in keeping with its post-colonial function. The facing beach or praia has itself disappeared after extensive reclamation work. Pushed back by new avenues, the former Praia Grande and the building itself are now worlds away from the one that characterized the former Governor’s Palace. The Guia Lighthouse, dating to 1865, is another historical landmark whose construction and history tells us much about Macau as a Portuguese city, especially during the second half of the nineteenth century. Built to the plans of the Macanese Carlos Vicente Rocha with donations form the British firm of HD Margesson, at a time when British interests and British firms were very active and influential in the city, it rises to a height of 13.5 metres. It was the first of its in to be seen by ships in the South China seas.
View of Penha hill and Praia Grande about 1900
Government Palace about 1900
It was erected next to an old chapel inside the grounds of an early-seventeenth century fort, which had played a crucial part in defending the city from the Dutch in 1622. The chapel, newly restored, is dedicated to Our Lady and both fort and chapel bear the name of Guia, as does the lighthouse, after Guia Hill where they stand. Guia Hill is over eighty metres high, so the fort’s walls used to provide a spectacular lookout over the surrounding sea and the city below. Today this wonderful panorama has been largely obliterated by indifferent concrete apartment buildings and other high-rises scattered randomly over the city. Fortunately the tranquil atmosphere of this place, which used to be almost unique to old Macau, has so far managed to survive.
Guia Lighthouse about 1890 EASTWEST 13
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CHINESE TEMPLES AND VILLAS The city’s Chinese architecture has been admired and praised by Westerners over the centuries. In the nineteenth century in particular it drew the attention of professional painters, such as the Frenchman Auguste Borget, as well as that of numerous amateur artists who passed through the city. If looked at dispassionately, Macau’s Chinese architecture is simply another local version of architecture from the region. That is not to say that it is unremarkable, but rather that it is a natural local growth of developments in temple and non-religious architecture taking place in southern China during the Late Ming and the Qing Dynasties.
Pawnshop about 1890
Lou Lim Iok Garden
Chinese villages and villas sprouted in the areas traditionally occupied by ethnic Chinese in Macau, usually outside the city walls. One of the most impressive examples is the villa once belonging to the Lou family, built in the vicinity of what once was the village of Mong Ha. The villa was built by Lou Kau, a wealthy merchant from Guangdong who immigrated to Macau in the 1860’s. Its plan followed those of the villas of the wealthy in China. But in Macau both Lou Kau and his son Lou Lim Ioc, who continued construction during the first decades of the following century, were able to enjoy the best of both worlds. The Villa of Lou Kau, today a public garden known as the Lou Lim Ioc Gardens, was set amidst a traditional Chinese garden, complete with clusters of trees and plants, Chinese bridges and ponds for lotus plants and multicoloured carp. However, its main pavilion is unusually decorated with elegant classical columns bearing Corinthian capitals. The latter is another example of the artistic exchanges that occurred in Macau, as was the case with the aforementioned decoration of the St. Paul’s church façade. Another of Macau’s outstanding Chinese villas is that of the Cheng family. The Late Qing Mandarin-scholar Cheng Kah built it near Macau’s typical Largo do Lilau, or Lilau Square.
Lou Lim Iok Garden
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Its many intimate patios are unfortunately falling into ruin but are still very much a part of Macau’s historical identity. The temple of A-Ma dominated the southern tip of the Macau peninsula several decades after the Portuguese town was founded, as it was constructed during the reign of the Ming emperor Wan Li, apparently under imperial patronage, early in the seventeenth century. It is sometimes conjectured that a shrine may have existed before then, but nobody really knows. Since its construction the temple has been associated with Macau’s Inner Harbour, the Bay of which was known as A-Ma Gao, or Bay of A-Ma, to the Portuguese. They used that name to refer to that part of the peninsula from at least 1555, even before they settled there. It is this name which has stuck up to the present time and the city is still known to Westerners as Ma-Gao or Macau. The A-Ma Temple was built under the auspices of fishermen-traders from Fujian province, who had settled in the southern tip of Macau. In fact, A-Ma is the Fujianese name for the Cantonese Tin Hau, or Goddess of the Sea. This temple, therefore, is probably the most venerated by Macau’s Chinese inhabitants practicing the Taoist or Buddhist religions.
Inner view of A-Ma-Temple by Auguste Borget
A-Ma-Temple about 1920
It comprises a set of small pavilions dedicated for the most part to Taoist or Budhist female deities. The second pavilion of the first or main terrace dominates the whole complex; the largest structure here is presided over by the image of A-Ma, where a large moon doorway overlooks the bay. It originally faced the open river delta waters and was built on terraces among boulders on the side of a peaceful hill. The location therefore made its feng shui, or auspicious position, extremely favourable.
A-Ma-Temple about 1920
A-Ma-Temple 1965
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Lin Fong Temple about 1925
Equal in importance to the Ah-Ma Temple is the Kun Iam Tong in the Mong Ha district. The name of this female Budhist deity is better known as Kwan Yin in other parts of China. To Buddhists she is the female goddess of compassion par excellence and has a large following in Macau. The Temple is even older than the one dedicated to A-Ma, as it said to date to the Yuan Dynasty in the fourteenth century. But the one that survives today is a more recent structure, begun in 1627 but modified and restored over the century. Historically its importance emerged in the nineteenth century.
Kun Iam Temple about 1965
It was here that Commissioner Lin Zexu ended his victory march through the streets of Macau in 1839 after his stand against the opium trade. And it was here, somewhat ironically, that Caleb Cushing and the Guangdong Governor signed the first Sino-American trade treaty in July 1844 after the defeat of China in the Opium War. Its ground plan is more usual for Chinese temple architecture. A short set of steps give access to the main portal. Beyond is a courtyard where another set of steps leading to the first contains large gilded images of a Buddhist trinity. The titular image, that of Kun Iam, is housed in splendour in the last.
Kun Iam Temple about 1925
Table on which the Sino-American treaty was signed 1844
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“Martyres of Japan” – painting in the Museum of Sacred Art of Macau
RELIGIOUS ART IN MACAU Besides the impressive wooden images, the Kun Iam Temple’s interior is, like several Macau temples, decorated with large relief panels of dragons before pools – all with a spiritual meaning – as well as numerous mural paintings and scrolls. Some of the latter are by renowned Chinese painters of the Late Qing Dynasty. They attest to the fact that Macau’s Chinese religious establishments provided one of the main sources of patronage for artists, as was the case with its Christian churches. The bronzes of Jesuits saints and the carved granite relief work on the façade of St. Paul’s church are by the hands of Japanese and Chinese artists working for the Jesuit fathers in the early seventeenth century. The baroque interiors of the churches of St. Joseph and St. Dominic, datable to the eighteenth century, are equally marvelous examples of colonial craftsmanship. The interesting museums of sacred art forming part of the Archaeological Museum of the St. Paul’s Ruins, the Episcopal Palace facing the Cathedral and St. Dominic’s church all give further indication of the points mentioned above. The one located in St. Dominic’s incorporates several objects made by silver smiths working in Macau, such as the extremely intricate procession shrine of 1683, as well as the nineteenth century decoration for the frontal of the altar of St. Vincent Ferrer, in the shape of scrolling vegetable forms. EASTWEST 17
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CHINA TRADE ART AND MODERN ART With the demise of the religious orders in the late eighteenth century, patronage of the arts fell to the hands of lay persons in Macau. The main sources of art patronage were now the government and private commercial firms. In the nineteenth century the British East India Company was highly influential in the region, Macau included. Its administrators were to become the main patron of the English painter George Chinnery, who lived in the city between 1825 and 1852, the year of his death.
Boatwoman with children, boatman and pedlars by George Chinnery (in “Images of Ninettenth-Century Macao”, Comissão Territorial de Macau para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses).
Chinnery enriched the cultural heritage of Macau with numerous portraits of his patrons, as well as his oil paintings, watercolours and drawings showing scenes of the city and its surroundings. He also created a school of amateur artists, among whom the Macanese Marciano Baptista was one of the best. He depicted scenes and landscapes in the manner of his teacher, yet developed his own style. Unfortunately, Baptista was forced to emigrate to neighbouring Hong Kong in search of the patronage unavailable to local artists in Macau at that time.
Cen u ytri The same can be said of the painter Luís Demée, a native of Macau and “m I - active in the city during the Second World War. Demée had to seek his fortune ages in Portugal, where he established himself as a leading artist in Oporto. His of teacher, the Russian George Smirnoff, had helped create an artistic milieu N ne ite ht during the war, after years of artistic neglect in the city. The same can be said of the modern Chinese master Kao Chien-Fu, so influential for contemporary Chinese painting.
Macau by Luis Demée
The tradition of amateur painters with varying degrees of artistic talent continued well into the twentieth century and up to our own days. It is more a tradition of the amateur Chinese artists of Macau, though it comprises styles and techniques representative of the two main painting traditions in Macau: Chinese and Western. During the last part of the 20th century the Portuguese administration embarked on an ambitious plan of cultural development, which has not only benefited local artists but also attracted some of the finest artists from Portugal, China and elsewhere.
Traditional houses at Praça Lobo D’Ávila by George Vitalievich Smirnoff (Col. MAM, Macau Art Museum)
Their paintings, sculptures, engravings, and work in other contemporary media such as video art may be seen in some of the new art museums established by the administration in recent years. Of these, the Macau Museum installed in the old St. Paul’s fortress, as well as the Cultural Centre, stand out for both their exhibitions and the architectural designs by distinguished Portuguese architects.
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