Retable art in India: its importance, the empathic apathy and the future. Cultural aspects concerning conservation

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 The idea of India and the Portuguese expansionist policy Understanding how to preserve a particular art form, such as the Indo-Portuguese retable art, may only be accomplished if we consider the history and cultural constraints established in the various contact points between the two cultures throughout history. Local Indian culture, multi-cultural and with its own singularities, has always been a point of fascination in the western world – such fascination being a result of the geography itself as it prevented the west from en-tering this sub-continent for centuries. India is the cradle of such religions as Buddhism, Hin-duism and Jainism, with religious traditions which have lasted to our days, as is the case of Hin-duism, and religious traditions imported before the Portuguese arrival, such as Islamism. Indian society is organized in a caste system, with its own laws dictated by the holy texts handed down through generations and which has received along the centuries the presence of several peoples for reasons that are connected to its own economy, based mainly in the spice trade. In the case mentioned here, western culture was conveyed by the Portuguese at the beginning of the 15th century during the reign of King Manuel I (1469-1521), embedded in a project with an essen-tially political matrix - the one designed by the House of Aviz, essentially focused on pleasing the nobility which was now underprivileged of war conquests and issuing pressure on the royal-ty (Boxer 1969). The solution was to “make expansionism a means to make the State stronger; (…) [however, the assertion of the] dynasty must have been an idea that developed in a gradual manner” (Thomaz 1994, 60).

Previously, the Project carried out by King João II (1481-1495) was drawn in seven different fronts, the fourth line being the collection of information on the East, the sixth line being the at-tempt to create several foci of Christianisation throughout the African continent, and the seventh being the intensification of diplomatic activity aiming at achieving the supremacy of Portugal over the conquered territories (Thomaz 1994, 166-7). These lines were also of critical impor-

Retable art in India: its importance, the empathic apathy and the future. Cultural aspects concerning conservation

M. Reis University of Algarve; CHAIA – Center for Art History and Artistic Investigation, University of Évora

ABSTRACT: Due to a combination of cultural factors and the lack of specific studies, retable art in India is slowly being neglected, forgotten and distorted, leading to a situation in which it is vanishing day by day. Actions to prevent its total dilapidation cannot be reduced to specific studies, which ultimately, will only prevent the total dilapidation of its memory. Portuguese In-dia is long gone and, with it, its features in art are simply being buried along with the past gen-erations. Politics are a double-edged sword acting both for and against culture and art. What are the reasons for this loss of Indo-Portuguese retable art? And will knowledge of these reasons help us establish a prevention plan to save retable art? Could India be a partner to save miscege-nized Indo-Portuguese Christian Art, an expression of two cultures? What is the future of Chris-tian retable art in Hindu India? This essay is a reflection on past and present history with a view to bring about the subject on modern retable art conservation.

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tance for the Manueline imperial project, which further added to the inherited Messianic ideas that characterized the way that Portugal ended up arriving in India. This way, the second voyage to India carried out by Pedro Álvares Cabral was established by King Manuel’s precise instruc-tions on how to approach the land and the people living there:

“ (…) Wishing very much to find out about that land of India and its people, primarily on the service of Our Lord, as we have the information that he and his subjects and inhabitants of his kingdom are Christians of our faith (…) should be sought for, to make sure they best practice our faith (…) taking from our kingdoms goods they need, and on the other hand bringing their own back to our kingdom (…)”(Rego 1991).

Politics and the economy of the kingdom were the main motivations that led king Manuel I to engage in the Portuguese expansion which - based on Messianism and the search for lost Chris-tians - departed to India once again. The help from religious congregations would be critical and the Jesuits’ aims to convert souls fitted perfectly with the king’s intents. Thus they were as-signed the task of recovering Christians deemed to be lost. It is at this precise moment that Indo-Portuguese retable art meets its protohistory, as it is due to this need to gather souls that the ret-able – a Bible in images – shall be the leading player of faith of an event in art.

2 RETABLE ART IN INDIA

2.1 What is Retable Art in India: the effects of miscegenation. The word retable originates from the latim retrotabulum - meaning the ornamental panel behind the altar. When mass celebrations began taking place with a forward-facing audience, retable art gained importance and began to grow not only in size but also in artistic splendor (see figure 1). In India it is within the realm of this ornamental grammar that the most relevant elements emerge to reveal the artistic miscegenation which characterizes and differentiates Indo-Portuguese retables from those of Portugal. Figurative elements undoubtedly constitute one of the aspects where one can best establish parallels between the classic models and miscegena-tion, the artistic expression of the encounter of various cultures. It is possible to find "works very close to Hindu sculpture with great hieratic character, if not to say rigidity often with a frontal predominance (...) with inexpressive oriental faces and complex treatment of plated dresses [a unique feature hinting at traditional Mughal clothes] (...) and bright colors enhancing physiognomic features”. The faces of Our Lady "are fashioned after Indian deities, adopting even some of their attributes” (Dias 1998, 264-266; Dias 2008, vol. 10). This is certainly the most obvious feature: faces are round, slightly flat, with narrow eyes. The facial expressions are pleasant, approaching the sculptural representations of Hindu deities.

As far as angels, cherubs and seraphim are concerned, they are often made to fit reduced spaces by twisting their bodies and placing them in unrealistic positions. The same is true of the sculptural ceilings of Hindu temples, where deities and mythical beings are restricted to geome-trically scanty spaces, as seen in Hindu votive plates and rock carved temples (Harle 1994; Mit-ter 2001). The rigidity of the bodies is also characteristic of the Hindustani sculptures, as seen in traditional Hindu representations of apsarã, or divine angels, a result of Mughal influence on Hindu iconography. Also in the field of figuration, predominantly in pulpits but also in the crowning of the big windows’ apses, such as the big windows of St. Jerome Church apse of Mapusa in Daman and Bardez in Goa (see figure 2), mythical beings often appear wrapped in clusters of leaves, which make it impossible to distinguish them at first. These representations have no parallel in Christian iconography, but Hindu iconography provides the necessary con-text relating them to the Kirtimukhas, widely used in Hindu sculpture until the 14th century as decorative elements symbolically associated with the idea of glory and protection (Jansen 2007, 19; Harle 1994; Rowland 1977, 316, 446).

Heritage 2010 - Heritage and Sustainable DevelopmentR. Amoêda, S. Lira & C. Pinheiro (eds.)

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Figure 1 - Detail in windows in Saint Jerome Church, Mapusa-Bardez in Goa

Figure 2 - Main retable in Good Jesus Church in Daman-Square.

Figure 3 - Detail in Our Lady with the Child retable in the Church of Our La-dy of Remedies, Little-Daman

Animal representations are often placed all over retable composition. In some cases, one can see beyond their Christian context towards a Hindu theme (Murthy 1984). This is the case of the middle-relief sea monster at the pediment of the retable of Our Lady with Child surrounded by acanthus in the Our Lady of Remedies Church, Grand Daman, Gujarat (see figure 3). The coil of the acanthus ends with a sea monster, which is a Makara in Hindu iconography (Jansen 2007, 68).

The interpretation of the ornamental grammar by local artists is particularly evident in orna-mentation. While in Europe retables were decorated with wine leaves, acanthus, pomegranates and others, different interpretations of the Christian religious liturgy emerge in Goa, Daman and Diu: "acanthus leaves (...) [are] the most important and widespread, combining [with ornaments typical of] (...) the local art (Azevedo 1969, 26). Among the elements of local art listed by the author is the replacement of grapes by cashews, which ties in with their local usage: like the grape, the cashew produces a juice used to produce an alcoholic beverage. Beside this, the ca-shew is used in Indian culture to cure various diseases and, therefore, may also have been asso-ciated with a certain apotropaic character (Erédia et al. 2001, 98).

Lotus flowers appear in almost all the Indian retables as symbols of purification, compassion and knowledge. There is no single representation of this floral element, which instead may ap-pear in a more pure fashion, stylized or even in geometric shapes. The presence of palmettes in the entablature and as motifs framing niches, galleries and chambers is recurrent and follows lo-cal ornamental themes inherited by Persian, Mesopotamian, Byzantine and Islamic cultures (Jones 2001).

2.2 The fight against disappearance Many retables are in urgent need of intervention, containing clear evidence of degradation, jeo-pardizing their survival. This unfortunate fact is recurrent throughout Goa. Climatic conditions are one of the aspects that contribute directly the deterioration of woodwork. A hot and con-stantly humid climate challenges wood properties. Nature also lends a hand: termites, known lo-cally as “caria”, lodge inside the timber and, silently and literally, eat up the artwork. When in-festation becomes visible, it may be too late and the whole retable can simply crumble. Many retables were disposed of because there was not enough money or technical knowledge for their consolidation.

Another recurrent aspect, one which is contributing to the adulteration of the Indo-Portuguese retable, concerns the constant aesthetic interventions they undergo. These interventions are of-ten made by companies and individuals who lack basic knowledge of heritage intervention or simply ignore the history of the retable. The retable ends up being given successive washes of


paint, with more or less common chromatic options and inappropriate types of paint, or else the entire surface is gilded irrespective of whether it was originally neutral or punctual. Often gol-den paint is applied instead of golden sheets, contributing little to the intended purpose and plac-ing unnecessary financial burden on the communities. What is actually happening is the result of technical misinformation in the midst of a good will for preservation. These are consequences of not having an organization dedicated to preservation and of legislation commensurate with international rules of conservation and restoration (ICOMOS 1964a; Ballestrem, ICCROM, e et all 1978; First International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments 1931; ICOMOS 1964b; ICOMOS 2003). The extant local organizations, unfortunately, are una-ble to supervise all the work involved. For the sake of retabulistics, art and its legacy, a solution is urgently needed.

3 GOA: HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL PRELUDE

3.1 From Aparanta to Gomantak, from Gomantak to Goa . Aparanta means land before the end. This was the name by which northern regions of India, in-cluding Daman, Diu and Goa, were known during the Mauryas period. Later on other civiliza-tions1 lived there and other names were given to it. What is important to retain here is that, ac-cording to tradition, the identity of Goa was being slowly built to the extent of diverging from the rest of India. Tradition has it that the first inhabitants of Goa region were Brahmin Sarasvati who came to this place to settle down and take possession of the lands (Dhume 2009, 177-8, 339). The first three groups arriving in Goa were Bhojas, Chediyas and Sarasvatis who kept connections with northern India. The second wave settled down in Quelossim and Cortalim – respectively Keloshi and Kushasthal in their original denominations but then became known by the name of their villages: Keloshikars and Kushasthalikars. Later on, the latter expanded to other places. The names of talukas (municipalities or districts) which nowadays distinguish and subdivide Goa, are also a reflection of the settling of Goa: Tiswadi, the name of the taluka which hosts Panjim (the capital) means originally thirty villages, and Salcete, the taluka where the city of Margão was located, means sixty six. With the settlement of Goa came Hinduism and with it its deities. Magirish, Mahadeo, Mahalaxmi, Kamakshi, Mahalsa, Shantadurga, Nagesh, Saptakoteshwar among so many others, are only some of the main deities brought from the north of India. The evidence that proves this reality is the amount of temples dedicated to those deities which can be found throughout the Goan territory. Later on, the enclave situation en-dured by Goa during the Islamic and the Christian periods allowed for a more pure form of Hin-duism to be retained, as the words of Romesh Bhandari2 suggest:

“Goa has a special role in the practice of Hinduism. It was the Aryans who first brought Hinduism as we know it today to Goa. The Hindus in Portuguese Goa however remained insu-lated from what was happening to their co-religionists in other parts of India. The Goan Hindu is therefore of relatively greater purity than Hindus elsewhere. This relates to religious rites, practices and of the observance of customs, rituals and festivals (Bhandari 1999, 161).”

This must have been one of the first episodes of the flight of the deities that the Goan territory had witnessed. However, this is not a flight in the negative sense of the word, as it represents the settlement of the Hindu religion within the territory.

3.2 Conquering India: an unfinished Project In his overseas policy, king Manuel I supported an imperial project of a deeply commercial na-ture in addition to missionary and faith propagation. What the Portuguese crown was not ex-pecting was that it would be extremely difficult to implement this faith project based mainly on conversions alone. The difficulties resulted in the use of more extreme measures which gave rise to reproachable actions, such as mass conversions, territorial prohibitions and inaccessibili-ty to senior public offices by unconverted people. The crown relied more on the conversions as a guarantee of its control over pepper – not only pepper, but all wealth produced by India. In its turn Goa had already undergone a similar period of control, of Islamic religious nature, under the auspices of the Vijayanagar Empire, in the 14th and 15th centuries and later on under Adil Khan of the Bijapur sultanate until 1510, the date when the latter surrendered Goa to Afonso de


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Albuquerque. Portugal reached India but never actually entered it, a fact which is obvious from the territorial geography. In a few centuries, Portugal lost even the exclusivity of the Cape Route, due mainly to the activity of spies, such as Jan Huygen Van Linschoten (1563-1611)3.The routes were no longer exclusive to the Portuguese crown and the economic consequences had their corresponding natural impact (Guinote 2003). Under these controls of religious nature, the Hindu matrix never really disappears from India; on the contrary it feeds and survives on the population’s zealous dedication. It is important to retain this fact, as it is in this religious zeal-ousness that the current approach to retable art is going to be positioned.

3.3 Hindu Goa, Portuguese Goa and Goan Goa. During the 1600’s in Goa, the kingdom turned to conversions which from a certain moment on became mass conversions. These episodes had native populations feeling more and more threat-ened as their lands were being occupied and their temples demolished to be replaced by churches. Hindu worship was repressed in its various aspects and the new Christian converts were forced to avoid any contact with members of their former religion, forcing the native Hin-du population to move from the territories occupied by the Portuguese (Axelrod and Fuerch 1996, 417). This was the true flight of the deities, a strategic flight to allow the continuation of Hinduism, thanks to the migration of the family, goods and deities in order to erect new temples to its gods in the territories of the New Conquests. After these first episodes of conversion the Church realized the newly converted were on a thin line as far as the effective practice of the Christian worship was concerned. New converts began to leave the Christian-controlled territory to join the Hindus that had already migrated, leading to reconversions to Hinduism (Axelrod and Fuerch 1996, 414). Influential Hindus were brought into the fold of Christianity, as was the case of some Brahmins who played an important role with the translation of Vedic works (Neill 1984, 237), but the removal of Hinduism largely failed in Goa and Hindu rites continued to be followed with the participation of the newly Christian. There were movements in and out of the Christian area and even orphans and widows were being sheltered by their relatives to allow them to escape conversion to Christianity. It is in this sense that the Count of Linhares (1629-1635), Governor and Viceroy of Goa between 1585 and 1677, passed a law in 1633 ordering that from that day on, all gentiles were prohibited to own any houses or land in the Salcete talu-ka, allowing them two months for departure. According to that law, any contacts between gen-tiles and Christians during this period of time were forbidden (Axelrod and Fuerch 1996, 416). Despite resistance by Hindus, rules, decrees and laws were passed prohibiting the practice of Hinduism. The number of new Christian converts increased to the extent that in the 1800’s, Goa clamed Catholicism as its major religion (Borges and Feldmann 1997).

The two cultural and religious realities formed a new way of being and thinking – the Goan way (Borges and Feldmann 1997). The region’s territorial location and cultural past gave birth to a singular kind of identity, an identity where most Goans would come to consider themselves Goans above their Indian-ness. This new identity, the Goan identity, which is neither Portu-guese nor Indian, is an identity with very specific features which prevails until this day. One unique characteristic is the perseverance of Hindus to keep worshiping their gods, originating interesting syncretic episodes. This is, for instance, the case of the Bhagvati goddess of the Tis-wadi taluka. This goddess, initially called Chimbel, was taken to Marcel in 1673 after being concealed in Mahen. Nowadays this goddess returns to Chimbel every year, in a procession which attracts both Hindus and Christians who worship her in the same way (Axelrod and Fu-erch 1996, 393-4).

The history indicates that it was impossible to repress the essence of a people, irrespective of all decrees and laws passed. In the midst of conversion and escape from conversion, local iden-tity continued to survive alongside a new imported one (Robinson 1994). In the retable these identities merge, beginning unique forms and representations, showing that on this stage – the one of art – conflicts can occur between a naga and a seraph, but no one can loose.

3.4 On the edge of a cliff – Indo-Portuguese art thru a political lens Portuguese India at the beginning of the 20th century was faraway and inaccessible. Lisbon was unaware of the immediate realities of Goa, its elite society and its own history, of the realities of


a colony which was entitled to choose its own representatives to the courts of the kingdom. When on the 15th August 1947 India declared its independence from the British authority, Sala-zar declared himself an enemy of Pandit Nehru, chief candidate of the Indian Union. On both sides actions and consequences emerged. The Indian Union claimed that Goa, Daman, Diu, Da-dra and Nagar-Haveli territories had been stolen from India, which made the Portuguese occu-pation of the mentioned territories illegal. In reply, the Portuguese government (the so-called New State - Estado Novo) claimed that at the time of the occupation of the territory there was not an Indian rule of law and those territories had been taken from the Islamic authority. There-fore, the Portuguese conquests were legal, in the light of the Right of Conquest. As far as reli-gious and ethnic issues were concerned, the Indian Union declared that it wished to be cut free from the oppression imposed by the Portuguese. In reply, Portugal stated that there were no signs indicating that the Goan citizens wanted in fact, to be “released”, and that the lower castes had, in fact, benefitted from the Portuguese presence as they had acquired the dignity which the Indian system did not grant them. The invasion of Goa, Daman and Diu territories has, there-fore, two names: “Revolution” and “Release”, depending on the two points of view explained above, showing a duality that is still present and shown by the Goan people.

This incursion in politics of the early 20th century was the basis for what followed: Portugal was disconnected from the Indian colonies and was now about to lose them. Under this scena-rio, England was a powerful ally to the Portuguese in preventing the loss of these territories. The New State relied on this alliance and employed the history of Indo-Portuguese art as a political tool to maintain ties with its overseas territories. Mário Tavares Chicó (1905-1966) and Carlos de Azevedo (1918-1995) were summoned on a scientific mission to show that this art was nei-ther Portuguese nor took away Indianess from the Indian state, as a way of justifying the pres-ence of Portugal in the territories. This hard task guided by political issues was probably one of the best scientific missions ever accomplished by the Portuguese state, but its submission to a political thought prevented it from fully achieving its aims. The manner in which the Indo-Portuguese art were seen was deeply influenced by the political agendas, the alliance with Eng-land and the detachment of the kingdom regarding the colony. The objectives that should have been of primary importance were largely disregarded. These in our view included establishing an intercultural understanding of the art itself; legitimizing Indo-Portuguese art as the unequi-vocal result of contact between two civilizations; considering art as a reflection of culture, reli-gion and the artists; understanding how artists perceived Christian art against a background of control; documenting the manner in which the Christian message was conveyed to the new Christian converts through this art; and finally, gaining an understanding of what particular as-pects of Christian art and symbolism were considered to be the most contentious to Hindu resis-tors. The consequences for other forms of Indo-Portuguese art, such as the decorative arts4, were not as strong as for the retable art. Retable art, while a major symbol of Christian religious spirit in churches, is of only minor importance in modern Indian daily life. The lack of research (Irwin 1955) into the meaning and importance of Indo-Portuguese art has resulted in a lack of formal recognition of it as a unique and important cultural form (Gomes 2009). Taken together, these reflections on the definition of the concept of Indo-Portuguese art indicate why it has not been able to attain a position as an important expression of art. These considerations may also be a large part of the reason why Indo-Portuguese retable art is considered as a minor area within art historiography, to which only slender and outdated studies are dedicated (Chicó 1954; Chicó 1959; Chicó 1956; Azevedo 1959; Azevedo 1969).

4 INDO-PORTUGUESE RETABLE: KNOWLEDGE AND PRESERVATION

4.1 Old Goa and the oblivion of the rest of the territory In terms of the historiography of preservation and restoration, Goa – a 3702 m2 territory com-prising 11 talukas or municipalities – has only had about 3 m2 and one single taluka: Tiswadi, the taluka where the first Goa of the Portuguese can be found: Old Goa. Although it is not our intention to deny its historic and artistic relevance, Goa is not only Old Goa. Outside the latter’s limits, lies a much larger area that cries for attention. The view that Goa only exists within “Old Goa” is abundantly evident -- from academic studies to tourist publications (Telles 1932; Telles 1931; Pandit 2004; José Pereira 2003; Doshi 1983; Lobo 2004; AAVV 1979; Fonseca 1878;


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Serrão e et all 2007; António Nunes Pereira 2005). Goa is considered to be only found in “Old Goa”, and any other places with a Portuguese presence are simply an afterthought to this “fact”. This reality is also apparent in the typology of studies carried out on Indo-Portuguese art: the sacred, votive, ornamental objects, as well as furniture items are by far the most studied ones. Then comes architecture, that of Old Goa and of Kerala in the south of India. Following the ex-peditions of Chicó and Azevedo, the retable was given little attention in the 1950’-60’ apart from the writings of Hilda Frias (Frias 2006). Even Frias, however, only considered a subsidiary section of retable art: the pulpit. Recently however, research into the retable art of the Company of Jesus in Daman and Diu has begun (Reis 2007; Reis 2009). Since 2007, 93.95% of Indo-Portuguese retable art within the Goa, Daman and Diu territories has been examined, resulting in the inventory of already 911 retables and 154 pulpits – a clear and impressive indication that Goa is much more than just Old Goa, at least as far as retables are concerned.

Figure 4-Total Sampling Figure 5 - Totals of Examined Places

The other 6.05% not in the inventory correspond mostly to places within the space of the New Conquests but with buildings dating from after 1800. Among the 93.95% in the inventory taken in Goa, Daman and Diu, 69.15% correspond to places with at least one retable, 23.79% correspond to places with no woodcarving pieces at all and 0.81% correspond to places with isolated woodcarving pieces with no entire retables5 It should also be mentioned that a small parcel of 6.25% correspond to places that either do not exist today, or no longer have a place in social memory.

4.2 Portuguese interventions and local interventions Since 1995, the Oriente Foundation (FO) has been represented in Fontainhas, the historical dis-trict of Pangim. The foundation has been instrumental in undertaking the restoration of Indo-Portuguese heritage artifacts, including the restoration of Indo-Portuguese retables. For this pur-pose specialists were brought in from Portugal to carry out not only immediate actions for the preservation of these materials, but to also teach restoration and preservation techniques to local artists, already engaged in the preservation of retable art through their families. Many of these local artists have been restoring retable pieces for at least three generations. The result, although isolated, is a positive one and allows for the perpetuation of restoration knowledge and the art. However, not all of the scenarios described here are ideal. The preservation and restoration techniques do not always follow the rules and the number of retables in need of intervention ex-ceeds the specialized labour existing in Goa. In 2001 FO undertook an intervention on the Our Lady of Monte Chapel in Old Goa (Fundação Oriente 2001) managing to recover the retables from an unexpected fire that occurred during the very first maneuvers of the restoration work it-self. By the hands of Miguel Mateus and José Artur Pestana, two renowned Portuguese conser-vators/restorers, the retables were given an intermediate solution, as the fire had taken most of the original polychromatic information. Today, the chapel is used for music festivals and offi-cial events (The Times of India 2010), an example of how investment can be productive.

In 2007 the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) started a project with the aim of taking an inventory of Portuguese Historical Heritage to assist in the restoration and preservation of Portuguese historical heritage scattered throughout the world, The work was undertaken be-tween 2007 and 2009 and currently, three volumes are being prepared for publication, with each one dedicated to single continent (America, Asia and Africa). A press release stated that the


project, headed by the most renowned specialists, was to be as comprehensive as possible, in order to foster future research for many decades to come. However, no statement regarding the specific number of countries that were involved was included. When we got in touch with FCG to write this article Drª Mafalda Soares da Cunha, one of the members of the research team for this project, told us that in terms of selection criteria, the team sought to articulate the existence of non-movable heritage of artistic and/or heritage value. Since it focuses mainly on analyzing the non-movable heritage, less attention was given to the interior decoration programs (Cunha2010). Regarding the Indo-Portuguese retables, Dr Mafalda Soares de Cunha is not aware if the retables were considered within the FCG inventory. In addition to this project, there are efforts being made to restore the frescoes of the Santa Mónica Convent of Goa. These frescoes, in addi-tion to the retable of Santa Mónica (not contemplated at this stage for restoration), are in urgent need of intervention and study.

The INTACH – Indian National Trust for the Arts and Cultural Heritage is a semi-private in-stitution with its head office in New Delhi, and it specializes in the protection and restoration of Indian historical and artistic heritage. Its pioneer intervention in the Sacred Art Museum in Ra-chol beginning in 1994 (now permanently in Old Goa, near São Francisco Church) are included in its list of direct intervention actions of Christian heritage. This intervention was carried out in cooperation with FCG and currently the restoration of Santana de Talaulim Church and the es-tate are inside it, including the retables. It is still early to carry out a critical appraisal of the ac-tion of INTACH at Talaulim since this action is still in progress. The author visited Santana of Talaulim in 2009 and found it to be a true restoration workshop, with at least five people carry-ing out interventions of important figures, although the restoration of the collateral retables with baroque influence were to be left in an allegedly neutral polychromy: white. There was no spe-cific justification on the choice as the person in charge of the work was not at the site at that moment.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), under the Ministry of Culture, is the premier or-ganization for archaeological research and protection of the cultural heritage of the nation. Its approach unfolds along more immediate actions like direct intervention, such as the regulation and implementation of safety rules on the listed heritage items. In Daman and Diu, ASI goes almost unnoticed except for the setting of identification plates. In Goa its action focuses pri-marily on Old Goa territory. According to the information provided by an officer of ASI – Goa Circle, engineer Rajendiran Siva (Siva 2010), ASI has been carrying out isolated preservation actions according to the cases which justify it. In this context, ASI has carried out the restoration of the retable of the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in 2005, setting new integrating pieces which had been detached from the set and which are perfectly visible to the naked eye, accord-ing to the more recent rules for this sort of intervention. More recently, in 2009, one of the re-tables of Sé Catedral (Cathedral) was removed for restoration.

The few and scarce interventions carried out, in partnership by local institutions and national institutions, are insufficient to guarantee the preservation of retable art in the long run, although this effort is preventing some retables from losing various constituting parts or from complete destruction. But in order to effectively implement conservation, it is necessary to take the next step.

5 HOW TO ACT?

5.1 Intervention plan: proposals for dialogue The initial fundamental step to draw up an intervention plan has already been implemented: the inventory of Indo-Portuguese retables. This project, currently still in progress, is of particular importance for the restoration of retables, as it is only through the knowledge of what still exists and the manner in how it needs to be restored, is it possible to prepare intervention and coopera-tion plans among the various entities and institutions aiming to reevaluate and restore Indo-Portuguese retables. Taking into account the fact that we have carried out an inventory which brought us very close to the reality of the Indo-Portuguese retables and the people who mediate their daily use, we have the sufficient knowledge to be able to say that an important step, if not the most important one, shall have to be taken by the Goa, Daman and Diu Archdiocese.


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The weather conditions and long life have not always been the worst enemies of the Indo-Portuguese retables. In fact, one of their worst enemies has been the lack of information and training of its interventionists. It is necessary to create regulations for the retables and the easiest and immediate way to do so is through the Church. The role of the Church would be to promote the dialogue and training of the various participants: clergy, the faithful, local preservation and restoration companies and later on to regulate the specialized intervention of the retable by means of written documents and supervision. In order to promote and implement this project, the Church would grant financial support and impose fines when interventions are carried out incorrectly. For that purpose it would be necessary to prepare a specific intervention policy which takes into consideration the Indo-Portuguese retable.

For economic reasons together with the lack of artistic training and knowledge of the histori-cal value of the retables, completely inappropriate restoration actions are being carried out on Indo-Portuguese retables: full gilding, inappropriate and neglectful painting of the elements and application of external elements such as light spots. Other more serious cases result in the re-placement of the original retable, still in good condition, with new retables for aesthetic reasons. These replacements take place when original retables are incorrectly considered to be aged and valueless, when instead, what should have been ascertained was that the retable was old and of high artistic value. It is sad for an historian to realise that in Old Portuguese India a retable of the 17th century can be considered as something old and with no value. This shows the ignor-ance and lack of information (training) that prevails. There are also reported cases where the restoration donors believe they are paying for pure gold and after the work is concluded the gilding is found to have been carried out using golden paint and not by means of the delicate application of gold leaf. During the research that took place in Goa we have watched several in-terventions in progress and in one of them we were even shown the gold leaf they claimed they were applying on the retable. However, through the use of a large focusing lens we could see that if that gold leaf was indeed ever applied, it was in isolated cases, since a paint draining would never occur in an ideal situation of applying that same gold leaf. In addition to these above mentioned aspects, the preparatory action for the intervention on the retable itself is all in all inappropriate: full removal of previous paints or gilding, showing no respect for the artistic matrix of the retable. By these examples, and for the sake of an art common to two peoples, it is necessary to lay down intervention rules on preservation and restoration for their participants: regulate the use of materials, prepare specific action plans for each case under study, legislate restoration artists, implement supervisions to restoration works in progress and duly train quali-fied restorers.

In addition to the fundamental role that the Church shall have to play, it is necessary to foster the dialogue among the various local bodies such as: Goa Government, Government of the terri-tories of the Indian Union, INTACH, Archaeological Survey of India, Goa, Daman and Diu Archdiocese and local associations of intervention for the recovery of heritage with the partici-pation of national bodies: Portuguese Government, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), Oriente Foundation (FO), Portuguese Institute for Conservation and Restauration (IPCR), etc. The presence of international bodies, such as Icomos International, is critical to obtain a strateg-ic vision aiming at analyzing and preparing specific intervention plans.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The manner in which Indo-Portuguese art has been and still is viewed today, is largely a result of significant Portuguese and Indian political and historic events. The political and cultural con-straints which this art faces hamper the retable to be suitably regarded as an art object and not simply as a religious one. The repeated foreign incursions that have occurred throughout Goa’s history clearly show that the cultural diversity of the region was already apparent prior to the ar-rival of the Portuguese. The Portuguese presence only made an additional contribution to its cul-tural and artistic background, already multicultural on its own and distinctive from its big broth-er India. This is evidenced by the resilience of the Hindu religion, which has survived despite several occupations of the Goa territory by aggressors of a different religion. In its turn, Hin-duism crystallized in its most pure form as a result of the Islamic and Christian enclaves within the territory. These enclaves prevented the natural evolution of Hinduism that took place in the


rest of the sub-continent. This multicultural uniqueness is apparent in retable art, not only influ-enced by Hindu artistic concepts, but also by artistic traditions brought by the former Islamic occupations. The syncretism in representations can only be explained when taking into count these cultural and artistic traditions brought by the people that helped shape the Goan identity. Even nowadays, the way the Christian rites are celebrated with an explosion of color and reli-gious devotion are contrary to traditional, more somber, European Christian rites. This too, re-veals its rich mixed cultural inheritance. On the other hand, the political and economic presence of the Portuguese within these territories in its last decades of rule, endangered the understand-ing of retable art as art. Instead, retable art has been seen through a lens colored by Christian conversion and soul gathering. This has resulted in the underestimation of the intrinsic artistic purpose of retable art. The scientific mission of Chicó and Azevedo was exemplary but fell short due to the current political scene and the way that the scientific research itself, full of po-litical constraints alien to art, was conducted in the end.

As for what concerns to retable art the scenario is different. Art has managed to put aside economics and political dialogues, evidenced by canonical Christian representations placed alongside local representations of non-Christian deities, myths and local flora. One can easily identify Persian or Islamic patterns from the early occupation of the territory. This multi-faceted nature of Indo-Portuguese retable art clearly indicates that the retable in former Portuguese In-dia should be recognized as a unique art form.

In order for Indo-Portuguese retable art to receive its due significance, it is necessary to pre-serve and restore retable art for the sake of art itself and not just for its religious value. This di-alogue in a Hindu India will not be feasible unless religiosities, mea culpa and current or past political factors can be put aside. It is necessary to understand and define what Indo-Portuguese retable art is in order to save it from incorrectly carried out restorations. Indo-Portuguese retable art is the result of an artistic cooperation of two types of religious praise – one indigenous and one imported – which produced a specific art form not found in any other part of the world. The foundations of a project for the recognition and preservation of this common heritage should be based on this unique character of Indo-Portuguese retable art.

ENDNOTES

1 - Mauryas (3rd cent. BC) Kshatrapas (2nd–4th cent. AD), Batpuras, and Bhojas (4nd–6th cent. AD), Chalukyas (6th-8th cent. AD), Rastrakutas (8th-9th cent. AD), Shilaharas (20th cent. AD), Kadambas (1000-1334), Local fiefs (1334-1350), Vijayanagara Empire (1380-1470), Bahamanis (1350-1380 and 1470-1510), Portuguese Empire (25 November 1510 to 19 December 1961), British Empire (1797-1813)

2 - Shri Romesh Bhandari (March 29, 1928, in Lahore) served, among many other positions, as Governor of Goa from 16th June, 1995 to 19th July 1996. His bibliography can be accessed at http://romeshbhandari.com/biography2.html

3 - Jan Huygen Van Linschoten (1563-1611) was a Dutch merchant and explorer who while in the service to the Portuguese crown, had access to maps and other information regarding Portuguese trade and na-vigation in Asia. He used his skills as a cartographer and draughtsman to copy a considerable acquis on nautical and trading information, enabling the entrance of Northern Europe into India.

4 - Decorative arts include furniture and sacred, votive and ornamental objects. 5 - These two data – Places without woodcarving and Places with isolated woodcarving – shall be

changed during the research, since the accounting of Places with isolated woodcarving is being carried out.

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Documents

Retable art in India: its importance, the empathic apathy and the future. Cultural aspects concerning conservation