Ouro Preto and Minas Gerais
JohnM
http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/brazil/index.htm
one more travelogue chapter with 30+ pictures of Ouro Preto and
the historical cities of Minas Gerais including Mariana,
Congonhas and Sao Joao del Rey along with a long chapter
about Brazil, its ghosts and its inflation problems. Here
are two descriptive passages to get you interested. Both are
about Ouro Preto. There is a lot of background history as well.
[1st extract]
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The bus to Ouro Preto stops high above the city next to the tourist
office. You don't notice the town until quite late, so I remember
vividly the thrill of seeing the twisted peak of Itacolomi for the first
time : so that's what the Boy-Rock looks like. I could imagine Antônio
Dias letting out a winner's cry. But then the town caught my eye and
held it wide open: this was not the stereotypical Brazilian landscape I
had come to expect: no beaches, no jungle, no concrete-and corrugated-
iron buildings, but gentle rolling hills and two-storey colonial houses,
Mediterranean-style with fuchsia-red pantiles in the roofs
Your first baroque Brazilian town is special for its surpassing of
expectations as you are bombarded with architectural splendour of the
highest calibre. Perhaps, had I visited Olinda first, I might have
thought otherwise, but on that, first trip after the wilderness of the
Amazon and the shabbiness of Belo Horizonte, I stepped out of the bus
onto Ouro Preto's narrow, roughly cobbled streets and felt as if I had
walked right into a frameless Renaissance painting: I could be in 18th
century Florence, or Sienna. There may be other great vista points in
Brazil gazing down on man-made magnificence or supreme natural beauty,
but that initial, mouth-watering moment of surprised shock still brings
me goose-pimples.
The tourist office sold me another map and tried very hard to flog me a
human guide, as well. I would have none of it as I also rejected their
advice to take the bus to Praça Tiradentes rather than walk down the
steep hill with my backpack. I zigzagged my way to the central square,
every step a new vista and every house - two storey, large wooden door,
square windows, painted windowsills - a gem; in our century of uniform
housing and apartment blocks, the 18th century individuality in design
of every single dwelling is poster-worthy. In fact there was a
beautifully constructed poster that attracted my attention,: "Balconies
of Ouro Preto and Mariana". It could have been titled "Meetings With
Remarkable Windows": first floor French arched doors leading to a
Mediterranean-style narrow balcony with lantern lights hanging on the
sides, flowerbeds sprouting irregularly; railings ranging from simple
horizontal beams, to elaborate arabesques on sculpted soapstone;
rectangular glass panes contrasting with elaborate shouldered arches and
complex skewed fanlight designs; ceramic red, blue mauve, yellowish
brown, sand pink, ink-blue coloured grilles framed in glowing white.
The secret of the beauty of Ouro Preto is its homogeneity: streets of
terraced two-floor houses, all in the same style, and yet each one
unique in character.
....................................................................
[2nd extract]
....................................................................
Forget the history of murder and betrayal of Ouro Preto's foundation,
the tales of Chico Rei and Tiradentes or the tortuous passion of Marília
de Dircéu: there is one thing Ouro Preto is famous for: its baroque and
rococo. Hovering over them is the architect and sculptor Aleijadinho:
the first American-born genius whose personal tale of even greater
suffering and glory reigns supreme in Minas Gerais.
My first glimpse of Aleijadinho's work were the wooden sculptures in the
Museo da Inconfidência, and like every visitor before me, I was a
convert: you immediately know that here was a grand master at play. The
cedar statues are not life-like, though many, like the statue of St
George, complete with spear, are life-size, but they are highly
individualistic in style - almond-eyed, hair obsessively undulated,
clothing sharply pleated and expressions out of the Eastern book of
spiritual countenance rather than the optically accurate canon of
Western Renaissance. If there can be a comparison, it is with another
unique stylist who brought Eastern elements in his line: Aleijadinho's
sculptures are like El Greco paintings come to life. Like Bernini, not
only was Aleijadinho a sculptor, but he was also a grand architect who
advanced the Baroque he inherited into a graceful rococo.
I started from the other far end : to the Western old Ouro Preto parish
and Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Pretos. In the Catholic church of times
past, there was a kind of saint's apartheid operating. Nossa Senhora do
Rosario was the Madonna of the Blacks accompanied by a set of African-
born saints: Santo Elisbão, Santo Benedito, Santo Antônio do Noto and
Santa Ifigênia. The latter was a slave's church; this was more of a
multicultural one. A book tells us of the fraternity's orders of 1715:
Article 1 states that Every person black or white of both sexes, free or
captive, of whatever nation who wants to become brother may come to the
fraternity's registry to apply. Article 2 reminds us that this is a
black church though: "There shall be elected a King and Queen, both
black, of any nation, and they will help and be present in festivities"
The educational superiority of whites at the time is betrayed in Chapter
3: "There shall be elected two judges, one male and one female, both
black, freed or slave, a secretary and a treasurer, both white and a
black proctor to administer the fraternity". In tune with such liberated
thinking the exterior of the church consists of a radical elliptic front
- like an athlete proudly blowing his chest, tucking back his shoulders
to the point where the two bell towers hover, facing a courtyard of the
best-looking and best-preserved complex of residential houses in Ouro
Preto. Had Nossa Senhora do Rosario been situated anywhere else but in
this feast of baroque art that is Ouro Preto, it would have been the top
attraction in town.
The walk down the Rua Antônio de Albuquerque past the simple chapel of
Bonfim - where the last rites for those about to be hanged were
administered - did take me to one of the jewels in the Crown of Ouro
Preto: the Matriz of Pilar, built in a traditional Latin cross,
heavily laden with precious metals: a full 434 kilos of gold and 400 kg
of silver have been used to ornate the interior. From the Bohemian
crystal chandeliers - donated later by Dom João VI - to the illusionist
painting of the lamb on a cross in the ceiling (echoes of Salvador's São
Francisco ) and the eight silver angels to the painted ceiling, this is
exhibitionist, extravagant baroque: when the Matriz do Pilar was started
in 1733, the riches of Vila Rica seemed inexhaustible.
--
JohnM More Football Delights #4
"For me the biggest threat is when they get to
the attacking part of the field" - RON ATKINSON
Web site http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/spaver.htm
Brazil 500 travelogue http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/brazil/index.htm
Ben Trovato
> I have put up on my site
>
> http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/brazil/index.htm
>
> one more travelogue chapter with 30+ pictures of Ouro Preto and
> the historical cities of Minas Gerais including Mariana,
> Congonhas and Sao Joao del Rey
I looked at your pictures of the historic towns of Minas Gerais --
they are excellent! These wonderful colonial towns & their baroque art
are one of Brazil's best kept secrets. It's really unfortunate that so
few people have heard of them.
JohnM
Trovato <ben_t...@my-deja.com> writes
>JohnM <jo...@scroll.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<QIS6BCAlDMK7EwmF@scroll.d
>emon.co.uk>...
>> I have put up on my site
>>
>> http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/brazil/index.htm
>>
>> one more travelogue chapter with 30+ pictures of Ouro Preto and
>> the historical cities of Minas Gerais including Mariana,
>> Congonhas and Sao Joao del Rey
>
>I looked at your pictures of the historic towns of Minas Gerais --
>they are excellent!
Thanks :-)
There are a lot more in the site as you can see *plug*
- from the Rio Carnival, Manaus, Fortaleza, Recife, Olinda, Natal,
Salvador, and lots from around Bahia.
--
JohnM More Football Delights #6
"Their position in the table looks just like it did
before, only better" - MATCH OF THE DAY