History has stored in its pages, the secrets of yore. Goa is celebrating the 120th birth anniversary of yesteryear Goan artist Angelo da Fonseca this year, with a major exhibition of his work, and also with the release of a book compiling his artworks on the last day of the exhibition. The exhibition is curated by Gerard da Cunha who is also the publisher of the book, ‘Fonseca’ written by scholar and Jesuit priest Délio Mendonça. “Fonseca’ is our fourteenth book,” boasts Gerard, adding, “The originals of the prints displayed in the exhibition belongs to the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa and the Jesuitenmission Nurnberg – Germany.”
The author Délio Mendonça shares, “After spending months and years looking at the Fonsecas and taking care of such masterpieces when posted at the Xavier Centre of Historical, Goa, I decided to write a book on Angelo da Fonseca (1902-67). I kept reading everything available on Fonseca and relating issues as well as situating him in his political, social, cultural and religious contexts. The man, his artworks and his times began raising new and stimulating questions and insight which are also very much germane to us today.”
According to the author, the previous dominant narratives on Fonseca, presented his message and oeuvres devoid of political and social commitments which his works invite every Indian citizen to reflect upon. Even when Fonseca’s art was viewed from a (Christian) religious angle, that too was very narrow. “Today Fonseca needs to be seen past conservative paradigms. Fonseca invites us to start conversation, reconciliation, to discover what we are and need to do. I hope this book will raise pertinent questions on the history of Goa, Goan identity and much more,” feels Délio.
Fonseca’s oeuvre indicates a manifestly unusual confluence, and unmistakably ground-breaking path rendered in sublime, minimalist lines, colours and compositions. Fonseca was an essential bridge figure between the Bombay and Bengali schools of Indian modernism, the creator of an astounding native Christian iconography that seamlessly blended both Eastern and Western influences via his own Goan sensibility and an essential early modernist of immense global significance.
Fonseca was never a figure that caught the eye of critics. Neither his works have been widely seen nor his historical importance ever been adequately assessed. A coffee-table book on Fonseca, his work, his times to be released in August this year, tries to correct these anomalies.
The book contains eight chapters on this forgotten master, on his teachers and mentors and their influences on his shaping. It also analyses if Fonseca was a modernist, and elaborates on the land, life and times he lived. The book also highlights the Indian Christian art in those times and the divide between the sacred and the secular.
On the calendar
- The dummy of the soon-to-be-released book ‘Fonseca’ will be displayed at the exhibition to view and to place pre-publication orders. The book will be released at the hands of Yessonda Dalton on August 6 at 6.30 pm at Central Library, Panaji.
- An exhibition of 126 prints in actual size of Fonseca’s work which are featured in the book will begin at Club Harmonia, Margao from June 10 to July 2 and at Central Library, Panaji from July 8 to August 6 from 10 am to 8 pm. His Excellency Rev Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao, Archdiocese of Goa and Daman, will inaugurate the exhibition in Margao.
