THE CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF GUIA IN MACAO AND ITS MURAL PAINTING PROGRAM澳門聖母雪地殿教堂及其壁畫
The article analyzes the Chapel of Our Lady of Guia (Guia Chapel) in Macau and, in particular, its recently identified and recovered mural painting program. Situating the analysis within the historical framework of the city — marked by the confluence of the Portuguese and Jesuit presence with local...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
2014
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40048/2347 |
| Summary: | The article analyzes the Chapel of Our Lady of Guia (Guia Chapel) in Macau and, in particular, its recently identified and recovered mural painting program. Situating the analysis within the historical framework of the city — marked by the confluence of the Portuguese and Jesuit presence with local authorities — the author argues that the chapel, despite its nineteenth-century neoclassical façade, constitutes one of the oldest buildings in the territory, dating back at least to the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Methodologically, the text articulates an art-historical reading of the architectural space with a reconstruction of the material fate of the paintings, taking into account the long-standing practice of covering them with whitewash/lime wash (until 1998), the subsequent hydrolysis and re-emergence of fragments, as well as the systematic survey carried out in the late twentieth century under the auspices of the then Cultural Institute of Macau, culminating in the complete discovery of the program in 2001.
The main conclusions emphasize that the mural program, although predominantly ornamental and occasionally conveying Christian rhetoric through cartouches, is distinguished by the integration of motifs of Chinese inspiration into its decorative language. The article thus interprets the chapel as a privileged space of cultural synthesis, where iconography and ornamentation establish a visual continuity between Eastern and Western artistic traditions within the context of Christian worship. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |