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In 1758 the following was written about St Claire Church: "It is the most
perfect and orderly in the Kingdom, all covered with gilt wood carvings and the
colour blue."
The St Claire Convent's Church is the best example to be found in a city
strongly characterised by the baroque phenomenon. The art of gilt and
polychromatic wood carving is one of its most notable features, thus
emphasising the appropriation of the Catholic Reformation principles (Natália
Marinho Ferreira-Alves).
The church is part of a group of buildings -- gilt covered churches -- in which
carved and polychromatic wood occupies the entire wall surfaces and coverings
of the sacred space, causing the sensory evasion of the devotee and raising
him/her to a supra-human reality. The wood carving work of the chancel and of
the crossing is the masterpiece of Miguel Francisco da Silva, architect and
wood-carver, one of the best interpreters of the Porto's baroque during the
reign of King John I.
The foundation of the St Claire Convent in Porto took place on 28 March 1416.
The event was marked by a solemn procession, with the presence of Bishop Dom
Fernando Guerra and of King John I himself. Princes Fernando and Afonso also
attended. Royalty was involved with the convent since the building's
foundation.
Few material testimonies have remained from this first stage.
Worthy of notice is the more recent cloister, a work that reveals the
assimilation of the most pure principles of Mannerism. In 1667 the nuns saw to
the construction of the belvedere. The transition from the 17th to the
following century was also marked by multiple works on the dormitories
(1707-1715), on the entrance-hall (with an interesting baroque portal) and on
the two choirs.
The transformation cycle of the church into what it is today started in 1729.
The access to the church is at the side, as it occurs on convents for women,
since the choirs of the religious were located on the opposite side of the
chancel. There is a portico at the entrance with late Gothic and renaissance
elements. It is the only exterior artistic element on a rather austere and
simple construction.
The interior comprises the nave, the chancel, and the high and low choirs on
the opposite side, with the respective seclusion grating, which separated the
faithful from the religious.
The masonry work on the chancel took place in 1729, when Dona Isabel Visitação
was the abbess. The work increased the height of the walls and of the triumphal
arch and gave more vastness and luminosity to the space. Architect António
Pereira, who was also working at the Porto's Cathedral, directed these works.
Similar renovation principles spread to the nave in 1732 and the new height was
delimited from the tribunes. Lunettes were opened above the tribunes, once
again demonstrating a concern for light. The plan of the church was the same as
before.
The main transformation was achieved not through architecture but through the
scenographic effect of wood carving. Since the nuns were extremely interested
in this art, architecture was annulled by the effect of the shining shapes of
the chromatic wood carvings and imagery that cover all the interior structures.
In 1730 the wood carving work of the chancel and crossing was assigned to
Miguel Francisco da Silva. It was a complex programme both formally and
iconographically standpoint. The shelf for the candlesticks, the crucifix and
the tabernacle came later. The result thus achieved turned the artist into one
of the most important of the Porto's baroque and the conventual St Claire
Church into one of the jewels of the Portuguese baroque art, for its aesthetic
quality and for the consistency of the whole.
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