Baroque Style

An appreciation of the Baroque style of architecture and in churches constructed in Goa and Bangalore. The important characteristics of this style were the spatial invention, the concept of movement, drama and sculptural decoration and freedom of detail.

- Shabbir Lehri

A brilliant new style of architecture – Baroque developed in Europe in the seventeenth century. It was also the century when geniuses like Newton, Galileo and Kepler were born and a new rational growth of science took place. Various discoveries were made during this time that the earth was no longer the center of the universe and it was Kepler’s discovery that the heavenly bodies moved not in circular paths but in elliptical orbits with many theories of science often being in conflict with religion.

Baroque style in architecture also developed from Renaissance buildings of Michelangelo, a radical sculptor and architect whose concept of architecture was something living and was stepping stone to the dynamism of Baroque churches.

The etymological origin of the word was perhaps from the Portuguese Barocco describing pearls of irregular shape. It refers to aspects of seventeenth century Italian art and served as an umbrella to gather a variety of international styles like Early High and Baroque classicism in countries all over world including France, Germany, Austria, England, and India. Although Baroque architecture was invented in Italy, it developed in India in the first decade of the seventeenth century and was bought by the Portuguese. It was also a time of great splendor with artists being asked to satisfy a taste for magnificence by creating works in which arts like painting sculpture architecture and urbanism were fused. The churches built during the Baroque period also represent oval shaped form, spatial invention and freedom of detail.

In Goa, the cultural influence of Portuguese who came to India in early sixteenth century as merchants and is reflected in the architecture of churches who introduced the Baroque style of construction.