The unique if bizarre blend of Chinese, Roman Catholic Jesuit and Portuguese colonial art on the granite facade of the ruined 1620s Church of Saint Paul in Macau, China, includes St Mary trampling a seven-headed hydra, a hideous devil and a human skeleton impaled by arrows, a galleon, a heavenly host of angels and palm trees.
Ruins of St Paul’s, Santo António, Macau, China: a unique, fascinating and sometimes bizarre gallery mixing Portuguese colonial and Roman Catholic Jesuit themes with 17th century Chinese art and culture survives on the ruined granite facade of the former Church of São Paulo, the only part of the structure to survive a disastrous fire in 1835. The facade, built in unusual Sino-Baroque style, was sculpted in relief in the 1620s by exiled Japanese Christians and local craftsmen under the direction of the Genoese Jesuit, Carlo Spinola. The carvings focus on the Virgin Mary or Holy Mother defeating evil and protecting the Christian Church. The artworks include Saint Mary trampling a scaly hydra with seven heads and protecting the Church, in the form of a Portuguese galleon sailing amid sea monsters through a storm of sin. A hideous devil and a human skeleton representing Death lie impaled by arrows and the cultural mix also includes a heavenly host of angels, a dove with outstretched wings, Classical columns and palm trees. The former Jesuit Church of Saint Paul or Mater Dei was built in the early 17th century for the Portuguese colonists who had started arriving in Macau a few decades earlier. At the time, it was one Asia’s largest churches, but the fortunes of both the hilltop religious complex and Macau itself declined due to competition from nearby Hong Kong and the 1835 fire during a typhoon left it in ruins. Calls in the early 1990s for the dangerously leaning structure to be demolished were ignored in favour of excavations that revealed the church’s crypt and foundations. Many religious artefacts were found, together with relics of Chinese Christian martyrs. The facade is now buttressed with concrete and steel and its crumbling openings filled by round arches.
Size: 3872px × 2592px
Location: Ruins of St Paul’s, Santo António, Macau, China.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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