In a mix of morning mist and drizzle, we depart Tavira for Faro (pop 60, 995 in 2019). Faro is the 'capital' of the Algarve; looking at a map's profile, it stands proud of the coast, the 'rib-tip' between two concave coasts: Portugal's south-facing Atlantic shore and the Golfo de Cádis. Practically, Faro sits behind a few miles of swampy marsh, the Ria Formosa (lagoon), and a thin line of barrier islands (Cabo de Santa Maria). Technically, the town of Sagres is further south than the city of Faro (37° 0' 36" N vs 37° 0' 58" N).
This is the lat day of autumn. We adjust our schedule to the weather, hoping that the rain will clear in time for lunch. Thus, our morning is spent in the Museu Municipal de Faro, which is housed in the Convento de Nossa Senhora da Assunção (sixteenth century). The pamphlet tells us that Museu has three parts: Museu Municipal (archeological and fine art), Museu Regional (traditional and folk art), and Galeria Trem (contemporary).
Here is José Saramago's preview:
The museum is nearby in Afonso III Square.The traveller was lost in reflections of this kind, waiting his turn patiently, or rather showing his impatience by pacing up and down the ample courtyard that gives on to the cloister of what was once the convent of the Assumption.The traveller saw all the rooms, liked some better than others, accepted or rejected the temporary exhibitions being put on there, but understood above all that the museum at Faro is a work of stubborn love. And the best of what is there is worthy of a great museum. Take for example the room dedicated to the ruins of Milreu, with its Roman and Visigoth objects, or how other rooms recreate the atmosphere that sets off the works being shown, or the excellent collection of decorative tiles, or the mosaics brought here, or the explanations. The list only ends there due to lack of time. (José Saramago, “Journey to Portugal,” 1990; trans Hopkinson-Caistor, 2000)
We find Dom Alfonso III's statue in front of the Convento; in 1249, he conquers the Moors in Faro, and holds out his scepter to proclaim himself King of Portugal and the Algarve.
The Convento is beautifully aged and restored. The nicked and chipped stones of the vault ribs, arches, and columns suggest damage from the earthquake of 1722 (almost exactly three hundred years ago), with several noticeable 'replacement parts' mixed in. And we immediately note the stork and nest on the corner chimney; well, the storks have confidence in the structure.
The Igreja of the Convento is part of the Galeria; today it is showing "Bordar O Sereno" (to embroider serenity) by artist Sara Domingos. The show connects traditional craft with contemporary expression and attempts to link the area's Arabic history with the current migration of women to Portugal from the destabilized areas of Syria, Iran, and others.
The layering of history is evident in every aspect of this place, including curation – a superb setting and engaging objects to begin the day's journey.
While viewing the embroideries and the stonework in the Igreja, a sudden squall fills the claustro with the roar of a hard torrent. The gargoyles begin 'gargoyling' and regurgitating over the buttresses. We stay behind the screen of archways and enjoy the theater.
Through another passage we find the door to the archeological displays of Ossonoba, the Roman city that preceded Faro. But we are also taken by the curatorial 'poetry' – such enthusiasm and so may exclamation points:
Special honour must be paid to the Emperors. In this case and by this time, their subjects would present as devotees of his "numen" and his majesty proving their submission, in an interweave of religion and politics promoted by the decurions from Ossonoba. This is the way it must have happened!
For the same reason, the sevirs – college of freedmen dedicated to the imperial cult – built temples at their own expense. The provincial governor was equally obliged. Architecture was making its mark; representing the supreme authorities!
Not just 'factual', these museum labels tell enlivening tales, provide an opportunity to expand our 'Roman' vocabulary, and deliver withering condemnations of reactionary architecture!
The history museum galleries continue with several funerary markers, a reconstructed gravesite, and another exclamatory jewel:
By their names we know them, by their names we imagine tenderness, "saudades"… Ave, Daphine, Daphinus, Acte!… And you, Numisius Eros, what a seductive name were you given! May we know why? From which lovers did you receive life, we wonder!… Rest in peace now!
All rest in peace – May the earth lie light upon you!
A soundtrack of ancient village life accompanies the stone pieces, the bones, and the curatorial verses. The museum staff's mandate is clear: tell the stories of these objects, and bring these old bones to life. And they use every trick, including sounds, graphics, and punctuation marks!
In the next room is Os Rostos de Oceanus; the centerpiece is an impressive floor mosaic of Titan of the seas (second or third century). The mosaic is from the area near Faro's train station (the other side of the marina), unearthed about a hundred years ago.
At the 'foot' of the mosaic is the dedication of a public maritime building in the names (nominas) of four local families, members of the civitas of Ossonoba, who commissioned the work. Just above Oceanus are Zephirus and Boreas, personifications of the west and north winds.
A neighboring space contains the Visigoth ceramics promised by Saramago, which date from the period just before Moorish rule in the eighth century: elegant tones and patterns, and a lovely presentation.
We ascend to the claustro alto and get up close with the gargoyles, as the relentless downpour rumbles above the wood-trimmed colonnade.
Upstairs, we enter "A Construção de um Cenógrafo" and the world of Joaquim António Viegas. We spend some time studying the constructed perspectives, the tools, the models, and the finished paintings. Together, these document the artistic process, and explain how a set designer creates his art.
Back out to the claustro, we follow a line of brasões (coats of arms) that includes the brasão of the city of Faro, a female figure over the castle gate. Of course, the figure belongs to Santa Maria, and the associated legend calls back to the time of Moorish rule, when the leaders of the town threw the statue of Santa Maria into the sea (near the Cabo de Santa Maria?), which resulted in empty fishing nets until the figure was restored.
The remaining galleries contain the works of Isolino Vaz, "Um Homen Diferente". His images are full of color and character. A feature wall is papered in pages from his sketchbook, which brings the people he observed and the places they inhabited alive. A well-known teacher and prolific creator, his work jumps between styles and techniques, a constant experiment.
When we finish the tour, the sun is out. We are happy; the storks are happy, too.
The churches are closed until the afternoon, so we can linger on lunch. When the bells ring the hour, we are waiting at the Igreja da Venerável Ordem Terceira de Nossa Senhora do Carmo (eighteenth century).
The facade consists of two, solid, Doric end towers and three central bays. The main portal is Corinthian, with a wonderful 'shimmy' spiral at the column's mid-height. The balustrade at the roof's edge, the upper-level windows, and the roundel on the right are painted ochre yellow, and lend a winking playfulness to the 'face'.
The worship space is a single wide nave with four lateral chapels and the capela mor, all in semi-circular archways and in gilt, carved wood. On our left, two diagonal sticks are all that hold an enormous organ, adjoining the coro alto.
The semi-circular arches are filled with 'fan-like' radial ornamentation (as opposed to linear or concentric) within the archivolts. The capela mor is covered in grassy sprouts and garish red blossom, which makes for an unusual Christmas-y 'look'.
At the top of the capela mor is the crest of the Carmelite Order (three stars on a white and blue background). Another image of the crest floats in an elaborate trompe-l'œil architectural setting, carefully painted to fit the curve of the barrel vault. At the key of the arch, just above the altarpiece, is an image of the Virgin presenting the Escapulário to São Simão Stock.
The sacristia has an amazing painted ceiling. Each panel features a small central drawing, such as a well, a tree, or a sailing ship. But the three standouts are: the sun, the Carmelite crest, and the griffin and the moon.
The sacristia exits to a rear courtyard, and the Capela dos Ossos (1816). Unlike the Capela we saw in Évora, where the bones were like architectural trim, here the skulls and the ends of the limb bones are 'blocks', as if the designer was a mason.
Almost all the skulls of the 'blocks' that form the entry portal are missing, either due to time, or vandals, or spirits in need of a new of a fresh one. Inside, the modular construction continues, interrupted only by a crucifix in a glass-faced cupboard and a hanging wrought-iron lantern.
Just down the hill from the Carmo is the Igreja Matriz de São Pedro (sixteenth century). Again, Saramago prefaces our tour:
The traveller found the church of the Carmo closed, but was not too worried. To have to climb all those steps, even with the wind behind him, seemed a superhuman effort in this heat. So instead he headed for the nearby church of St Peter, to see and admire the multicoloured eighteenth-century tiles and the other blue-and-white ones in the Capela das Almas and, though recognising the beauty of the St Anne, above all the bas-relief showing the Last Supper, a profoundly humane scene of friends sitting round a table, eating roast lamb, bread, and drinking wine. Christ has a halo, which isolates him from the rest somewhat, but they are all sitting shoulder to shoulder, and the Judas portrayed in the foreground so that he cannot escape the indignation of the faithful, looks as though a few kind words would lead him to throw his thirty pieces of silver onto the floor, or put them on the table to pay the shared expenses of the meal. (José Saramago, “Journey to Portugal,” 1990; trans Hopkinson-Caistor, 2000)
The Igreja's exterior is modest; at the center is São Pedro holding the keys. Inside, it expands, tardis-like, with a central nave, two side aisles, and three bays of a sturdy Tuscan arcade. The balcony of the coro alto is braced with a system of thin steel trusses (perhaps to account for the weight of an organ?). And two elaborate chapels are on each side of the central bays.
Saramago's 'St Anne' (the mother of the Virgin) might refer to the Capela de Nossa Senhora da Vitória (eighteenth century), which is the tall chapel on the left (Evangelist side) with the painted red curtain. Sant'Ana is usually depicted holding a young girl (the Virgem Maria), who in turn holds a small baby (the Christ child), in this case, the example is only a Madonna and Child.
On the right-hand (Epistle side) is the Capela das Almas (chapel of the souls, seventeenth century), with its azulejos surround showing stories of the salvation of the Almas do Purgatório (souls from purgatory).
Facing down the aisle on the Evangelist side is the Capela do Senhor dos Passos (nineteenth century), with a figure ready for festival processions, fronted by more grassy sprouts – the Portuguese must know about the American holiday tradition of chia pets.
At the front of the Capela are two angels acting as thurifers, with some intricate iron bracing embedded in the nearby stone. On the inside of the angel on the right is another figure that could also be Saramago's 'St Anne', a seated female saint holding a book open for a younger girl (Sant'Ana is often shown teaching the Virgem Maria to read).
On the face of the retable is a message for the worshippers: Sitientes venite ad aguas (come to the waters).
We follow Saramago through the Arco da Vila (nineteenth century):
From St Peter’s the traveller went to visit the Cathedral. This part of Faro, inside the walls, is the Vila-a-Dentro, the old town. Ossóboa fell into a terminal decline, and then on its ruins a new town slowly emerged. Later, much later, the Arabs came and built their walls, and the town became known as Harune in Arabic; from Harune to Faro the distance in linguistic terms is not nearly so great as it might seem. Once he has entered the Porta da Vila, the traveller feels hot again. The wind has stayed outside, in the end it’s a timid kind of breeze that does not dare penetrate these narrow, silent streets, and which even the square in front of the Cathedral cannot tempt to come out and play. Perhaps on the avenue of São Francisco, which used to be marshland, the wind will enjoy the open space and the river estuary. If he has time, the traveller might go and see: there’s no point insisting on the church of St Francis anyway, because a disappointed traveller coming in the opposite direction tells him it is shut. (José Saramago, “Journey to Portugal,” 1990; trans Hopkinson-Caistor, 2000)
The storks have overwhelmed the facade; we wonder how they hung those Christmas lights without being attacked. Inside the Arco, a horseshoe-arch window remains as proof of Moorish occupation. The masonry in the old ceiling vaults displays some dazzling workmanship, and reveals a series of fascinating nested ovals between the arches.
The Sé Catedral de Faro (Nossa Senhora da Assunção, thirteenth to fifteenth centuries), like its neighbor the Museu, is a collection of parts. With its distinct earth-tone masonry, the torre sineira is centered on the west face of the white-washed, nondescript body of the church. There are older, smoother blocks and Gothic arches at the base; there is rougher stonework above, and a roundel with a diamond mark that dates the work to 1762 (possibly rebuilt after the earthquake of 1755). Then, there's a trio of bells and the Portuguese galo.
The body of the church is an accretion of oddly formed boxes. The windows and doors represent a catalog of eras. An assemblage of domes and cornice lines creates an uneven profile. Some sections are freshly painted while others are streaked with the patina that comes from decades of exposure. The upper part of the tower is newer, but the lower part is clean. Additionally, the intersections of the pieces is not always comfortable, especially on the south side of the torre sineira, where the archway slips past the face of the lower building.
Once past the sarcastic ticket vendor, we access the claustro, an open yard with two small chapels. The first is the Capela de São Miguel (seventeenth century), a clean and bright room with the Archangel and his sword and scales.
In the corner is the Capela dos Ossos, with the Carmo's now-familiar 'block-construction', but with all the skulls broken or lost. Nossa Senhora stands in judgement here: some go up, and some don't. The angels and their bones share a warning.
The Cathedral is definitely old: some of its stones date back seven hundred years. But since then it has seen so many adventures and misadventures (lootings, earthquakes, changes in taste and in power) that between Gothic and Renaissance, Renaissance and Baroque, it ended up losing far more than it gained. From its earliest phase there remains the magnificent tower-portal (which, even if the Cathedral itself were closed, would make the visit worthwhile) and in the interior, the end chapels of the nave. Apart from this there are Renaissance paintings, golden statues, plump marbles, and a wonderfully colourful eighteenth-century organ. The traveller did not hear how it sounded, but if its music gives as much pleasure to the ears as the sight of it does to the eyes, then Faro Cathedral is generous indeed. (José Saramago, “Journey to Portugal,” 1990; trans Hopkinson-Caistor, 2000)
Initially, the 'hovering' pipe organ (eighteenth century) grabs our attention. The folks in Faro seem to enjoy a good, gravity-defying pipe organ, and this one really sets a standard. In fire-engine red, there's nothing 'shy' about it.
On the left (north), just past the organ, is the Capela de Nossa Senhora do Rosário (seventeenth century), an excellent integration of azulejos, carved wood, gilt work, and a blank white dome with an oculus. The nearby sign tells us the panels represent the 'Fuga para o Egito' (escape from Egypt) and the 'Perda e Encontro do Jesus no Templo' (loss and encounter of Jesus in the temple). Two black angels are thurifers here and represent the Confraria de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos (Confraternity of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black People, established in 1554 and headquartered at the Sé).
At the ends of the transept are two fully tiled Gothic chapels (both fourteenth and fifteenth centuries): the one on the north for Nossa Senhora da Conceição, and the one on the south dedicated to São Domingos (containing the tomb of Rui Valente, a knight of Prince Henry).
As at São Pedro, there are three-bay Tuscan arcades up to the crossing, which form the two aisles and the central nave. The capela mor is under repair.
Capela-Relicário do Santo Lenho (eighteenth century) is on the left (south), covered with a series of aedicula, each with a golden reliquary stand. This is the unfinished project of Dom António Pereira da Silva, Bispo do Algarve between 1704 and 1715 (that's his tomb); evidently a piece of the Cross (holy log) is the only relic in the Capela, as all the reliquaries appear to be empty. Given recent evidence, this is a puzzling scarcity of bones.
Capela de Nossa Senhora das Prazeres (eighteenth century) is the taller chapel on the south side, and is an over-the-top example of Baroque carving, with painting, inlaid marble, and golden stucco. Our eyes cannot rest; at some point there's just too much 'pleasure' to figure out what's going on.
In the coro alto, we get a good close look at the pipe organ, and realize it is decorated with blue and gold Chinese vignettes. In the mezzanine by the south aisle is a small museu with an interesting collection of illustrated mother-of-pearl tiles showing the Via-Crúcis (stations of the Cross), the graphics reminiscent of woodblock prints.
Finally, we ascend to the terraço just as the sun begins to set. We find ourselves behind the line of abiding bells; just past five, they won't ring for another hour. As the seascape converts to a kaleidoscope, we wait and watch.
After the day's drama, we're surprised our staring at the dimming sun would be so calming. As the shades wash across the lagoon, we scan the horizon and find the Museu where we started. Time does not stop or repeat, but it can slow, and it can be read. Atop the torre sineira and its 'sedimentary layering', time seems to 'revolve'.
Tomorrow is the first day of winter, and then Christmas and New Years Eve. Beginnings and endings offer occasions, if not to start over, to start fresh – generous indeed.
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