July 05 • Church of the Santa Cruz, Barcelos

16h30 • Concert Portuguese Polyphony

 

The Nossa Senhora do Terço [Our Lady of the Rosary] Church stands in Avenida dos Combatentes da Grande Guerra, facing Campo da Feira. In spite of that privileged location in the urban grid of Barcelos, its 18th-century entrance, flanked by two cartouches dating from Mannerist times, does not particularly hint at the riches its interior holds.  

The single-naved temple illustrates the ornamental opulence of those Portuguese buildings that were generally described as dressed in blue and gold, due to the combination of the blue in their azulejo tiles and the gold of their wood carvings, with cobalt blue prevailing here. Temples like this one, built in what was then the town of Barcelos, display the riches that, during most of the reign of King João V, the Magnificent, became visible throughout Portugal and Brazil, with such ornamental exuberance that the decoration seems about to burst out of its walls. 

Inside, the azulejo tiles display high levels of quality and decorative power, lining the walls of the whole church. The tile panels that evoke episodes from the life of St Benedict (the building was originally a convent for Benedictine nuns who had moved from Monção to Barcelos) were made by master painter and tile-maker António de Oliveira Bernardes (1713), who left many instances of his work throughout Portugal. Recent studies have focused on his contribution to Portuguese art during the first half of the 1700s. The iconographic repertoire of the panels, which are displayed like tapestries covering the walls – a trend that had been in vogue since the first half of the 1600s – focuses on aspects of the saint's life. The frames that separate the various scenes feature a number of vegetation-like scrolls, typical of the Portuguese Baroque. Also worthy of mention are the panels in the main chapel, which came from the workshop of 'PMP', a master painter whose identity remains a mystery, and depict scenes related to the convent's foundation. Finally, the tile panels also include a number of false windows, on the Gospel side, symmetrically mimicking the real windows on the Epistle side, which run along the church's front, facing Avenida dos Combatentes.

Two pieces of gilded woodwork are especially worthy of mention here: the main retable and the magnificent pulpit, on the wall on the Gospel side, facing the church's side entrance. Thanks to its placement, no visitor is likely to miss this work of art, attributed to Gabriel Rodrigues Álvares and justly considered one of the most important pulpits created during King João V's reign, also known as the Joanine period.  This beautiful piece is composed of a balcony, with a bicephalous eagle at its centre, and a theatrical-flavoured canopy, decorated with sculptures and other motifs, in a colourful and refined whole.

The main retable, dominated by the Portuguese Baroque style, has its top decorated with concentric arches intersected by voussoirs, echoing a model that has resonated in many buildings throughout Portugal. The gilt woodwork combines with the polychrome elements present in the retable itself, but also in the sacred effigies that complement it, once again showing the importance of the plays of light and colour during the Baroque period.

Paintings cover the nave's whole ceiling, in the form of a series of panels with scenes from the life of St Benedict, while there is also a number of imposing canvases on the walls of the Gospel and Epistle sides. These paintings are contained in voluminous carved frames, an important form of Baroque woodwork that is not always properly valued by historiographers, who generally tend to concern themselves more with the painting  itself. 

The Nossa Senhora do Terço Church, whose main structure was erected between 1703 and 1713, impresses visitors with the opulence of its interiors, whose ornamental exuberance is such that it can even seem to exceed the temple's size, especially the nave's width. Gilded woodwork and azulejo tile murals unite with impressive paintings to create one of the main treasures of Northern Portuguese Baroque and one of the most expressive monuments  in the city of Barcelos.  (GVS)