The question ‘what is a painting?’ requires an anthropological approach. Usually we approach a painting as a mere work of art. We trace a history of painting and interpret it within some important cultural determinants. But when we frame the painting withing anthropology, we bring the physical, mental, social, political as well as religious dimensions into our consideration.
We may have to look at the painting and image/picture, in which the painting resides to understand the bodily dimensions of paintings. At time when image proliferation is mechanized through 3D printing and other digital/ AI technologies, it may be important to bring our attention to the bodily side of paintings.
Paintings are produced by human bodies and they affect human bodies and remain embodied as memories in human bodies. Body and its carnality are very important to the dynamics of a painting. We can also see paintings as expansion of human utterance. Painting is therefore, figurative language. At several levels, paintings mirror of a culture of a society.
The image/ picture in the painting has a direct relation with our imagination. Within this broad field of the anthropology of art, we can also find a locus for an anthropology of a painting and within this anthropology of painting maybe we can try to locate the anthropology of the iconography of St. Francis Xavier specifically in Goa. Hence, how does sacred images, paintings and icons of St. Francis function within Goan Society can become an important anthropological question.
Certainly, any picture, image , painting , icon etc., have what we may call aura following Walter Benjamin. It is this aura of the art work that produces the socio-religious life of the art objects around St. Francis Xavier in Goa. We can also notice that this art objects have also acquired what Benjamin calls cult value and not merely manifest secular exhibition value.
Goans of all walks of life relate to the Saint as ‘Goycho Saib’ which simultaneously mean several things to Goans. The title , ‘Goycho Saib’ can be viewed as a master siginifer of Jacques Lacan by which Goans bring their intimate life and weave it with the Saint’s cultic position in Goan society.
The socio-religious life of the cult value of the iconography of St. Francis Xavier in Goa is a fascinating anthropological issue. Such an examination of the cultic life of the Saint within Goan society open vistas that may have not been critically considered by us in Goa. Staying within this anthropological consideration, we have to affirm that the great Saint cannot be separated from the public consciousness of Goans.
It is not merely the presence of the sacred relics of St. Francis in Goa or devotions, novenas and feasts associated with him render as a subject of anthropological inquiry but also the kind of iconography the developed over the centuries especially through paintings can be examined with anthropological concerns.
The visual representations of the Saint have put up their contribution in the generation of the cult value of the Saint in our society as well as the aura generated by the cult value of the Saint produces the mystical aura of each painting that is representing St. Francis Xavier.
This examination actually manifests profound aspects of Goa, Goans and Goaness rather than simply the artists, artforms/ medium and the Saint that they paint. To begin this anthropological study, we have the challenge to begin with the condition of the socio-religious status of the iconography of the Saint in Goa. The socio-religious status is definitely not apolitical. It has vibrant traditions of contestations as well as counter-contestations, affirmations and negations especially in our days.
We may employ ethnography based methods to conduct our anthropological analysis that we have opened in this context. I being a Goan and being intimately part of the cultic life of the Saint in our society, find the transcendental method of Immanuel Kant or the phenomenological method of Edmund Husserl as more appropriate for this task.
Maybe the distanciation that phenomenology provides becomes the best method to do an anthropology of the presence of great Saint of Goa. Therefore, letting the phenomenon of the Saint show itself from itself in Goa can become a major concern for us.
But in this context, since our specific orientation concerns the paintings of the St. Francis Xavier , we have to consider the paintings within the larger phenomenon of the Saint in Goa which has both its communitarian as well as individual aspects Goan relations with the Saint.
What is important is to examine and manifest how the presence of the paintings with the larger phenomenon of the Saint’s presence is generating an attitude to life. This does not mean our attitude to life as Goans is entirely produced by the phenomenon of St. Francis Xavier in Goa but we cannot also say that our attitude to life is free from the same.
Our susegado attitude perhaps also flows from our deep sense of belief that Goa is safe because of the presence of Goycho Saib. The Goycho Sai, thus, intimately belongs to the worldview of most Goans.
The paintings, thus, placed within the phenomenon of Goycho Saib manifest how Goans have hybridized (Homi Bhaba) their response to the colonial past and decolonized their life. While the paintings still follow the basic old Western epistemic demand that thinks to image is to copy the original, art in the West itself has moved to other forms of production of art.
The paintings of St. Francis Xavier may still attempt to copy physicality and historicality of the Saint, Goans by naming the St. Goycho Saib have decolonized themselves as well as the Saint. No Goan devotee of the Saint relates to the Saint as outsider. The Saint belongs to Goa in profound intimate way. Goans have hybridized and decolonized the Saint in Goa.
Indeed it is a form of deconstruction (Jacques Derrida) at the level of culture which is often not fully understood by the detractors of the Saint. Staying within this deconstruction of culture, we have same paintings that have inscribed Goan-ness in the painting tapestry of the Saint.
In a recent art exhibition on St. Francis Xavier held during the 18th exposition of relics of Saint, we had three paintings that seemed to goanize the Saint. This effort is indeed praise worthy and is capturing the anthropology of the presence of the St. Francis Xavier in Goa for centuries and they have to be viewed within this anthropology that is dynamically alive in our days.
It is these mode of paintings that has inspired the parishioners of Borim to take forward this Goan anthropology through a painting exhibition of Goycho Saib Goychea Akaran. Thus, it is an attempt to put the intimacy that Goans have lived with the Saint for centuries in the mode of paintings. This exhibition is planned to celebrate the birthday of St. Francis Xavier.
From the anthropological point of view , ‘Goycho Saib’ is not merely a verbal title. It has sonic / musical aura as well as ritual, devotional , educational (schools and colleges) , culinary ( the sausage bread), social and political overtones. It belongs to the lifeworld of Goans. Take the simple case of fishing boat named St. Francis Xavier. This naming along with the inevitable picture of the Saint manifest how the Saint lives in the ordinary lives of folks in Goa.
