ARTS AND CULTURE
State of the art Many painters – whether born and bred in the city or residing here later in life – have lived, worked and created beautiful pieces of art in Macao. We choose the 16 most recognisable painting talents from over hundreds of years of art history. Text Aaina Bhargava
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or more than 450 years, Macao has seen many great painters – whether born locally or moving here from lands afar – setting up their easels on its shores, depicting the city in all its complexity and documenting its rich history. The SAR’s heritage, location and diversity have allowed for countless cultural exchanges to occur over the years and it has often been a hotbed of artists who have seen Macao as a haven, a space for transition or even escape – but mainly a beautiful place to capture on canvas. Over the years, the city has cultivated its own notable art scene with painters creating works that reflect the city itself in terms of redefining identity. It would be easy to say that Macao’s most famous artists have all hailed from across the world and moved to the city for a period but in reality, the bedrock of Macao’s ever-changing styles, influences and
works are just as much Chinese as they are foreign. Maria Margarida Saraiva, who works with the art promotion and education group at the Macao Museum of Art, under the Department of Exhibitions and Museums, says: “Since Macao’s administration was Portuguese until 1999, the majority of the documentation available – at least for public collections – is written in Portuguese. For this reason, it may seem to us that foreign artists [like] Giuseppe Castiglione, George Chinnery, Auguste Borget, Marciano António Baptista and George Smirnoff are more relevant than other Chinese artists whose histories are lesser known.” Saraiva says that alongside those Macao greats, there are as many Chinese painters over the years in the city who have equally influenced the scene. “They were developing their work in different
timeframes,” she says, “reporting to different art traditions and therefore producing a diverse body of works which influenced, more or less, the local art [scene], certainly in very different ways.” Although there are many painters who were born and raised or at least lived in Macao for a period of time and who played a significant role in shaping its art history, here’s our list of the city’s 16 most recognisable – right up to the present day...
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Giuseppe Castiglione Painter and architect, born 1688 in Italy, died in 1766
Known for his hybrid painting style fusing Eastern and Western traditional techniques, Castiglione’s Jesuit background took him from Milan to China in the 18th century, by way of Macao. This is where he was exposed to
GIUSEPPE CASTIGLIONE ‘The Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback’ 1758
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