Edifícios de culto barrocos no Nordeste do Brasil: a arquitetura a serviço de concepções do sagrado.

Abstract

This research reflects on the use, in the first two centuries of Portuguese colonization in the Northeast of Brazil, of baroque art and architecture as means of communication and persuasion, through the use of its elements of dramatization and enchantment. This use, proposed by the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church after the Council of Trent, was applied in Brazil in the construction of several architectural ensembles, of which three were selected: the Church of S. Francisco (attached to the former Franciscan Convent of João Pessoa) the Church of NS das Neves (linked to the Franciscan Convent of Olinda) and the Church of St. Anthony (attached to the Franciscan Convent of Recife). The problem was formulated taking as a basis the theory of the sacred and the profane of Mircea Eliade, which affirms the existence, in each culture, of places of transition between the sacred and the profane. Therefore, we sought to analyze the space of Baroque churches in Brazil in the seventeenth century as spaces of transcendence, a mixture of sacred and profane. It was also sought the support of historians and architects such as Giulio Argan and Germain Bazin, who hypothesize that these elements and architecture were intentionally designed to emotionally engage the man who was in doubt with his faith. The methodology used was, therefore, analytical.