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1 - Block Baroque style church 2017

ABOUT THE STAMPS

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Stamp issue N. 17 Photos: Luciano Soares – Correios and Nelson Kon – Iphan Art finishing: Jamile Costa Sallum – Correios Brasil Print system: offset + golden hotstamping Souvenir Sheet with 1 stamp Paper: gummed chalky paper Facial value: R$ 2.55 Issue: 50,000 souvenir sheets Design area: 38mm x 38mm Stamp dimension: 38mm x 38mm Souvenir sheet dimension: 127mm x 85mm Perforation: 11.5 x 11.5 Date of issue: December 1st , 2017 Place of issue: Salvador/BA Printing: Brazilian Mint

FAÇADE OF THE THIRD SECULAR ORDER OF SÃO FRANCISCO DA BAHIA CHURCH
The façade of the Third Secular Order Church in Salvador is distinguished from all other Brazilian churches from the Colonial Brazil period because it is fully ornamented with stone sculptures expressing the Baroque era features, the "Horror Vacui" (from the Greek “fear of the empty”). This type of façade, known as the "retable-façade", which is very common in Spanish America (Mexico, Peru, Ecuador), is the expression of the power of a lay religious order composed of white men, members of the colonial financial, political and intellectual elite, which projected its social status into the façade’s artistic singularity. Bibliography identifies this façade as being made in the “Plateresque”, or “Churrigueresque” style. The first one, comes from the transposition of silversmith mannerism ornaments in the 17th century for stone and wood; The second style relates to the load and labored ornaments practiced by the “Churriguera” family, composed of Spanish architects and sculptors from Salamanca in the 18th century. Third Order was founded in the São Francisco Convent in 1635, by Frei Cosme de S. Damião. In 1644 the meeting room and the first church were built. In 1686, the church rebuilding project was defined under a monumental plan. The first stone was placed in 1702 and the project chosen by tender was the one developed by Mestre Gabriel Ribeiro. The work was extended until 1703, when the temple was inaugurated Artists approached the ornamental repertoire and the labor delicacy of the "plateresque" style. On the other hand, the building scheme does not seem to repeat or get closer to the "Churriguera" family style. The ornamental elements order obeys the constructive logic of the Portuguese-Brazilian altarpieces made in wood by wood carvers in the 18th century and the solutions present in the architectural treatises of the period. The façade is divided horizontally into three different bodies, distinguished by two moldings, the lower body corresponds to the temple entrance door , the intermediate body represents the central area of the facade, where the choir windows and the niche with the sculpture of Saint Francis, Patron of the Order, the higher body is the pediment that concludes the set with volutes, the Imperial and the Franciscans coat of arms and the Latin cross. In the vertical plane are four dividing lines realized by pilasters in corbels with acanthus leaves in the inferior plane, and occupied by human figures in the central plane. The two figures in the extremities are feminine and dressed in roman tunics, the two figures nearer to the niche, are masculine, half-naked and carry typical gourds of mendicant pilgrims. The ornamental vocabulary incorporates several fantastic baroque motifs such as masks, classic mermaids (transmuted into foliage from the waist down), evil snakes that occupy the pilasters frieze in the extremities and classical architecture motifs. In the 19th century changes were made: Two doors that flank the central door were opened and the coat of arms, which probably was of the Portuguese crown, was transformed into the Imperial Coat of Arms having an armillary sphere on the Christian cross, edged by 19 stars corresponding to the Nineteen existing provinces at the time. The ascending vertical axis unites the temple’s main door with the crowned Patriarch sculpture,and with the Imperial Coat of Arms and the Latin Cross from which all power emanates. In the 19th century, motivated by the criticism to the ornamental exaggeration, all this exuberant work was covered by whitewash mortar. It was only in the 20th century that the original façade was accidentally rediscovered, removing all plaster and revealing it entirely. We can now see this façade as an aesthetic link between Brazil and Latin America. Luiz Alberto Ribeiro Freire PhD in History of Art