The Southern Empire of Baroque

One aspect of the Baroque too rarely recognized is the colonial dissemination of the style from central and southern Europe, southward to Sicily, South America and even South Africa and India. It was the Dutch who created the Cape Colony in South Africa, building Baroque-style homes in their new territory of Stellenbosch. However, the film depicts Spain as the cradle of the most characteristically florid styles, both in architecture and painting, which are then shown to have been transferred to Sicily, virtually a province of Spain in the period, and of course to Latin America, the `New Spain,' where an architect such as Alehjadino could continue to practice in such modes into the nineteenth century. Even more surprising, perhaps, we learn of a Baroque colony at Goa in India, created by the Portuguese.

© 1998-2001 The Roland Collection & Pira Intl.