Steven and I had stayed the last two nights in the Golden Circuit town of Aregua but hadn't actually spent any time in and around the town yet. A little ways out of Aregua was, we hoped, the Museo del Mueble, a furniture museum that was founded by artist Carlos Colombino in 2013. As we feared, the museum was closed so we could only peer through a fence to see the extraordinary building with its two huge concrete slabs that seemed to be falling apart from each other. Just a small amount of space was open at the top corner of the post-modern architectural style for"the space of conflictive observation," that Colombino wanted.
Aregua's claim to fame on the Golden Circuit near the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion was its ceramics. We could barely walk down the sidewalks of the town's main streets because of the humongous number of ceramic figures, pots, piggy banks and doohickeys! The garden gnomes and multitude of ceramic animals didn't do anything for us.
Our guide, Jose, noticed the caretaker working in the garden and persuaded him to open up the gate for a moment so I could take a photo. Success! It looked striking and it would have been fun to wander around the castle if we'd been there on a Sunday.
The massive tanks contained corn oil, canola and soybeans. Jose mentioned that Paraguay, about the size of California, was the sixth largest exporter of soybeans in the world. Farmers in the Missiones area of southern Paraguay can produce five harvests of soybeans every two years because of the perfect climate and soil conditions.
We'd planned to go next on to the small town of Ita but detoured back to Itagua so we could stop at its excellent Museo San Rafael which had been closed a couple of days earlier when we'd visited the town known for its lovely nanduti lace craft. As I wrote in a previous post, Itaugua's Museo San Rafael was founded in the 1960s to conserve the statues from its old church and elsewhere.
The oldest piece of religious art in the museum was the Chapel of St. Raphael for whom the museum was named. He may have been the patron saint for the original church but that wasn't certain.
One of the larger statues was of the life size 17th century St. Stanislaus of Kostka.
One of the most beautiful pieces the museum had was the framework of a reredos from the original church with the Virgin of the Rosary in its central niche. Reredos means an ornamental screen covering the back of an altar
As stunning as the religious art was in the museum, what captivated our attention was its magnificent Nanduti Gallery with a display of dozens of different designs of circular web of lace that had made Itaugua famous.
This design was called Birds in Flight.
Toucans' beaks!
I couldn't begin to imagine the technical skill required to make any of these fabulous nanduti designs. This intricate one depicted horses.
Called Puru'a, this nanduti represented the life of a fetus.
Could you guess this was a pansy design?
Jose wanted to show us the gallinas de suerte or lucky hens that were a traditional Ita craft so we stopped at the local craft center, CAPICI.
The hens, which come in different sizes and colors, normally have clay feathers stuck all around them like petals. Each color represented a wish for good fortune in some way: white for love, brown for friendship, gray for health, black for abundance, etc. Chris: I bought a gray one for you but can't find the darn thing, blast it! One of these days it will show up and you will have it, I promise.
The church was dedicated to San Blas aka St. Blaise, the 4th century bishop who healed a child with a fish bone in his throat. In the church tower was the little figure of San Blas in his miter wearing a red cape and stole.
We made our way respectfully through the church because there was a high school graduation taking place when we entered.
The reredos, frescoes on the walls, the shutters, etc were all original! The figures in the reredos were clothed in material and not in wood. The bright red associated with Sn Blas was carried over with the figure of St. Peter on the far left and St. Laurence on the far right.
One of the painted roof beams indicated it was dated from 1698.
Yaguaron was famous for being the only Reduction town to have its original church still standing in its original form. Though it was a Franciscan Reduction church, it was based on exactly the same model of the Jesuit Reduction. With its simple pitched roof, massive wood columns and separate bell tower, it was distinctive.
The
church was dedicated to St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan bishop and
saint after one one of the two founders. We were happy to pay the church
caretaker to turn the lights on to better view the reredos and
therefore help pay the electrical costs.
The church was large and imposing with its 30-meter wide colonnades all around it. As the architecture of Reduction churches in the Missiones area were made of stone, the first meter of the church's walls was in brick but the rest was the traditional adobe and wood so as not to experiment with new techniques.
The external bell tower was a fine example of the kind that used to adorn every adobe and wood Reduction church. Stone churches had their bell towers incorporated into the church itself.
The high painted ceiling was what every church in the Reductions looked like originally.
The roof was built first supported on massive tree trunks up to 30 meters high that were buried in the ground even with a chunk of the root structure. Later on, the adobe walls, up to 1.8 meters thick in spots, were filled in later as they didn't support the roof.
Unfortunately, the former painted walls were whitewashed in 1919 as they were considered beyond restoration.
The 14 meter high by 6 meter wide reredos was carved out of petereb'y wood by a Portuguese sculptor. In the center was the Immaculate Conception; above her was the Holy Spirit. At the top was God the Father with an orb and triangular halo representing the Trinity. Archangel Gabriel was to his right with Archangel Raphael to his left carrying the usual fish. Also present was a third Archangel Michael with the sword used to defeat the devil.
According to Jose, Yaguaron was the only place to see God at the top of a church because otherwise Indians wouldn't understand God is the most important.
To make the church come alive for us, Jose explained that the Franciscan friars learned the indigenous Guarani language first, then what made the Indians afraid and what would save them, i.e. the angles.
The acoustics were phenomenal in the church as they were intended for the Indians who weren't sure the priests were real human beings!
The pulpit was as stunning as the rest of the church! Its images helped to teach the Indians the Gospel, sort of like a power point presentation in their time, Jose joked!
According to records, the church was one of the few that existed in the country out of the 103 at the beginning of the Triple Alliance War. Thank goodness Jose had brought the church to our attention when planning our itinerary of Paraguay via countless emails back and forth as somehow I had not known about it!
By the entrance out front was a figure of Samson and a lion carved into the adobe with the date of 1775, four years before the church's completion.
The lovely home with its colonnade out front had a display of period objects and furniture with some religious art.
In what was likely a household altar from the 19th century was a cross.
The Immaculate Virgin was created in the 18th century.
The furniture in Francia's bedroom and the rest of the home had come from France and Spain.
I thought this was one of the most original bathroom signs for my 'collection' as it was made with local fruits and plants!
As we drove south along the country's major highway, we passed a 5 km-long stretch of balls of every shape, form and description being sold on both sides of the highway! Jose told us that one man had started making them a while back. When he had too much business to fill all the orders, he asked neighbors to help. They subsequently became entrepreneurs in their own right! What a hoot seeing all the hucksters hoping people would stop to buy their balls.
As it was scorching hot, I hopped out only briefly so I could have my photo taken by the pretty tacky statue for the town of Caapucu!
Rio Parana had a lovely beach but we didn't have time to more than snap these photos.
Villa Florida was as pretty a beach town as its brightly colored entrance sign! Before the bridge was built, people had to cross the river by raft! The town was a holiday resort because of its 10 kms of sandy beaches, similar to San Bernardino was nearer Asuncion. wealthy citizens had homes in the capital, farms in the country as well as holiday homes in Villa Florida, just minutes from the beach.
Jose remarked that we had entered the pampas, an area of fertile South American lowlands normally associated with Argentina. With its gray soil, the pampas was betters suited for raising cattle rather than the rich red soil needed for growing crops found further east.
Me beside St.Michael the Archangel at yet another town sign!
This was the first thatched-roof building we saw in Paraguay.
Both sides of the highway in San Miguel were clogged with vendors selling hammocks and woven products galore. It was hard to know where to stop to look at, and likely buy, some as they all appeared to offer the same selection of products. Everywhere we could hear the clackety-clack of hand-operated looms being operated in the vicious 95 degree heat.
The selection of designs, colors and sizes was just enormous. I could almost feel Steven's eyes glaze over as I asked for his input!
We ended up buying a couple of table runners, not that we really needed them, but they were very attractive and would be a nice memento of our visit to San Miguel. We keep having to rotate table runners on our various tables as we have quite an assortment of runners from all over the world now!
The next town we came to was San Juan Bautista, home of Augustin Barrios, the best guitarist in the world, Jose told us, according to famed composer John Williams.
In 2009, San Ignacio celebrated the 400th anniversary of its founding with many events and lectures. The annual anniversary of all the Reductions is now
celebrated with a week of celebrations at the end of December to mark the
date of the first Mass in the first Jesuit mission.
We saw several bas-relief murals in painted cement by the church that were created in 1999, using Guarani traditional mythology to portray Christian-related themes. Though the murals were the work of various artists from different countries, there was still an unified style, technique and, except for one, the same muted color scheme.
Around the old plaza was a large section of casas de indios or natives' homes with their traditional long colonnades and still with wooden pillars. In most original homes, rotten wood pillars have been replaced with masonry ones.
The Museo Diocesano del Arte Jesuitico Guarani had the names of the 26 Jesuit martyrs who perished during the Reductions. The town's museum is regarded as the most magnificent standing 17th century building in Paraguay.
The museum was located in a building that had originally been the residence of the Jesuits in the Reduction. At the end of the colonnade were exposed adobe blocks that showed the almost one meter thick internal construction of the walls.
In the museum's first room, called the Room of the Creation, was a striking composition of Tobias and the Angel; the former was portrayed as a small boy taking the hand of his angelic guardian.
Another famous piece was a rather feminine-looking St. Michael conquering the devil. Small chunks were cut out from the back of the statues so the weight was reduced after the inside was hollowed out.
The next room, the Room of the Paschal Mystery, had statues of the passion and resurrection, including two portraying the Risen Christ greeting His mother with her arms outstretched. Sadly, the cross that was originally in Christ's hand had been taken. Both statues were originally carried in procession on Easter Sunday morning.
I don't recall ever seeing the Immaculate Conception with Mary standing on the moon before.
In the last room, devoted to the Society of Jesus, was St. Ignatius, the patron of the Reductions, with three other Jesuit saints. What was truly mind-boggling was all these statues had been painstakingly carved only for the Guarani indigenous people, not for the Europeans.
Aregua's pottery tradition arose in the late 19th century when potter Ricardo Perez helped Triple Alliance War hero, General Bernardino Caballero, escape his enemies by hiding him in a big kiln and faking a fire inside! Caballero repaid him by giving Perez land in Aregua for a larger pottery business.
As the Christmas season was nearing, there were also gobs of nativity scenes and religious figures.
Steven and I couldn't escape fast enough from all the kitsch!
According to the travel guide we had, the old railway station had been converted into a craft shop selling items made in Aregua and other local towns. However, it, too, had closed down.
The most beautiful building in town was the Castillo Carlota Palmerola that was started in the mid-19th century but not completed until the early 20th century. As the castle was now home to Dominican nuns, it was only open one Sunday a month and we were there on a Wednesday. Because of the gate and foliage, I had almost given up hope of seeing its reputed medieval and Gothic features.
Our guide, Jose, noticed the caretaker working in the garden and persuaded him to open up the gate for a moment so I could take a photo. Success! It looked striking and it would have been fun to wander around the castle if we'd been there on a Sunday.
The large metal sculptures at a busy intersection caught our attention as did the scantily clad sculptor himself in what looked like a jungle! Turns out it was Justo Guggiari whose father did the metal tree trunk you may recall from an earlier post from outside the National Congress in Asuncion.
Guggiari told me he'd been living there in the jungle for the last 25 years.
Steven and I immediately recognized the telltale John Lennon sculpture.
I really liked the sculpture of the birds but its hefty price tag and difficulty fitting into our duffel bags made it impractical.
Jose remarked that Paraguay had departments instead of states like the US and that there were 17 of them in the country. Sixty percent of all the territory in Paraguay is in the Chaco region north and east of Asuncion, the capital. As in my native Canada, the federal government has been trying to decentralize so that was why all three branches of the national military academy was well away from the capital. Jose added that all military recruits serve for four years together and then choose which branch of the military to enter. After a further two years, they receive the title of sub lieutenant after graduation.
The massive tanks contained corn oil, canola and soybeans. Jose mentioned that Paraguay, about the size of California, was the sixth largest exporter of soybeans in the world. Farmers in the Missiones area of southern Paraguay can produce five harvests of soybeans every two years because of the perfect climate and soil conditions.
We'd planned to go next on to the small town of Ita but detoured back to Itagua so we could stop at its excellent Museo San Rafael which had been closed a couple of days earlier when we'd visited the town known for its lovely nanduti lace craft. As I wrote in a previous post, Itaugua's Museo San Rafael was founded in the 1960s to conserve the statues from its old church and elsewhere.
The oldest piece of religious art in the museum was the Chapel of St. Raphael for whom the museum was named. He may have been the patron saint for the original church but that wasn't certain.
The fine 16th century Franciscan statue of Christ at the Column was used in the city's Good Friday procession.
One of the most beautiful pieces the museum had was the framework of a reredos from the original church with the Virgin of the Rosary in its central niche. Reredos means an ornamental screen covering the back of an altar
As stunning as the religious art was in the museum, what captivated our attention was its magnificent Nanduti Gallery with a display of dozens of different designs of circular web of lace that had made Itaugua famous.
This design was called Birds in Flight.
Toucans' beaks!
I couldn't begin to imagine the technical skill required to make any of these fabulous nanduti designs. This intricate one depicted horses.
Called Puru'a, this nanduti represented the life of a fetus.
Also on display were some vestments made with nanduti. This one dated from 1955.
One of the most elaborate nanduti pieces we'd come across since arriving in Paraguay several days earlier was this of the town's church made in 1945.
It would have been fascinating to watch someone making a nanduti
design as I couldn't begin to imagine how one was made. Steven and I
were so, so happy Jose had brought us back to Itaugua so we could gawk
at the nanduti pieces and religious art at the Museo San Rafael!
Jose wanted to show us the gallinas de suerte or lucky hens that were a traditional Ita craft so we stopped at the local craft center, CAPICI.
The hens, which come in different sizes and colors, normally have clay feathers stuck all around them like petals. Each color represented a wish for good fortune in some way: white for love, brown for friendship, gray for health, black for abundance, etc. Chris: I bought a gray one for you but can't find the darn thing, blast it! One of these days it will show up and you will have it, I promise.
Ita
was the second of the Franciscan Reductions when it was founded in 1585
by two Franciscan friars. The church was not only the earliest but also
had several interesting features lost in other Franciscan churches. Ita
also claimed to be the pottery capital but both Aregua and Tobati no
doubt would dispute that!
The church was dedicated to San Blas aka St. Blaise, the 4th century bishop who healed a child with a fish bone in his throat. In the church tower was the little figure of San Blas in his miter wearing a red cape and stole.
We made our way respectfully through the church because there was a high school graduation taking place when we entered.
The reredos, frescoes on the walls, the shutters, etc were all original! The figures in the reredos were clothed in material and not in wood. The bright red associated with Sn Blas was carried over with the figure of St. Peter on the far left and St. Laurence on the far right.
One of the painted roof beams indicated it was dated from 1698.
Jose thought we might be able to spot some caimans at Laguna Ita so I hopped out, hoping to find one or two. I didn't see any but there were some pretty birds like herons and egrets.
Yaguaron was famous for being the only Reduction town to have its original church still standing in its original form. Though it was a Franciscan Reduction church, it was based on exactly the same model of the Jesuit Reduction. With its simple pitched roof, massive wood columns and separate bell tower, it was distinctive.
The church was large and imposing with its 30-meter wide colonnades all around it. As the architecture of Reduction churches in the Missiones area were made of stone, the first meter of the church's walls was in brick but the rest was the traditional adobe and wood so as not to experiment with new techniques.
The external bell tower was a fine example of the kind that used to adorn every adobe and wood Reduction church. Stone churches had their bell towers incorporated into the church itself.
I couldn't help but agree with the description of "this
gloriously harmonious extravaganza of painted and carved wood" once we
stepped inside.
The high painted ceiling was what every church in the Reductions looked like originally.
The roof was built first supported on massive tree trunks up to 30 meters high that were buried in the ground even with a chunk of the root structure. Later on, the adobe walls, up to 1.8 meters thick in spots, were filled in later as they didn't support the roof.
Unfortunately, the former painted walls were whitewashed in 1919 as they were considered beyond restoration.
Even
the confessional boxes were elaborate works of art with columns and
toppings, all painted in meticulous detail with shades of red, green
and gold.
The 14 meter high by 6 meter wide reredos was carved out of petereb'y wood by a Portuguese sculptor. In the center was the Immaculate Conception; above her was the Holy Spirit. At the top was God the Father with an orb and triangular halo representing the Trinity. Archangel Gabriel was to his right with Archangel Raphael to his left carrying the usual fish. Also present was a third Archangel Michael with the sword used to defeat the devil.
According to Jose, Yaguaron was the only place to see God at the top of a church because otherwise Indians wouldn't understand God is the most important.
To make the church come alive for us, Jose explained that the Franciscan friars learned the indigenous Guarani language first, then what made the Indians afraid and what would save them, i.e. the angles.
The acoustics were phenomenal in the church as they were intended for the Indians who weren't sure the priests were real human beings!
The pulpit was as stunning as the rest of the church! Its images helped to teach the Indians the Gospel, sort of like a power point presentation in their time, Jose joked!
According to records, the church was one of the few that existed in the country out of the 103 at the beginning of the Triple Alliance War. Thank goodness Jose had brought the church to our attention when planning our itinerary of Paraguay via countless emails back and forth as somehow I had not known about it!
By the entrance out front was a figure of Samson and a lion carved into the adobe with the date of 1775, four years before the church's completion.
Also of interest in Yaguaron was the Museo Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia
named after Paraguay's first president because his father was the
home's first owner.
There was a large collection of drawings of Paraguayan natives from a very old French magazine. Le Tour de Monde.
The lovely home with its colonnade out front had a display of period objects and furniture with some religious art.
In what was likely a household altar from the 19th century was a cross.
The Immaculate Virgin was created in the 18th century.
The furniture in Francia's bedroom and the rest of the home had come from France and Spain.
Books from his personal library were written in Latin, a subject I studied for four years in high school back in Canada, but remembered almost nothing!
I thought this was one of the most original bathroom signs for my 'collection' as it was made with local fruits and plants!
The terrain changed markedly as we drove further away from the Golden Circuit around Asuncion and entered the campo.
As it was scorching hot, I hopped out only briefly so I could have my photo taken by the pretty tacky statue for the town of Caapucu!
Rio Parana had a lovely beach but we didn't have time to more than snap these photos.
Villa Florida was as pretty a beach town as its brightly colored entrance sign! Before the bridge was built, people had to cross the river by raft! The town was a holiday resort because of its 10 kms of sandy beaches, similar to San Bernardino was nearer Asuncion. wealthy citizens had homes in the capital, farms in the country as well as holiday homes in Villa Florida, just minutes from the beach.
Jose remarked that we had entered the pampas, an area of fertile South American lowlands normally associated with Argentina. With its gray soil, the pampas was betters suited for raising cattle rather than the rich red soil needed for growing crops found further east.
The town of San Miguel was known as the Capital of Wool as the sign over the highway proclaimed! The town was the perfect place to buy woolen and woven crafts, especially hammocks, blankets, rugs, tablecloths, ponchos, hats, socks, etc.
Me beside St.Michael the Archangel at yet another town sign!
In the middle of the town's plaza was the little Church of San Miguel with a traditional bell tower beside it. When the Jesuits were there, the church belonged to the Santa Maria de Fe cattle estate.
This was the first thatched-roof building we saw in Paraguay.
Both sides of the highway in San Miguel were clogged with vendors selling hammocks and woven products galore. It was hard to know where to stop to look at, and likely buy, some as they all appeared to offer the same selection of products. Everywhere we could hear the clackety-clack of hand-operated looms being operated in the vicious 95 degree heat.
The selection of designs, colors and sizes was just enormous. I could almost feel Steven's eyes glaze over as I asked for his input!
We ended up buying a couple of table runners, not that we really needed them, but they were very attractive and would be a nice memento of our visit to San Miguel. We keep having to rotate table runners on our various tables as we have quite an assortment of runners from all over the world now!
The next town we came to was San Juan Bautista, home of Augustin Barrios, the best guitarist in the world, Jose told us, according to famed composer John Williams.
The eucalyptus trees were planted just 15 years ago as part of a reforestation project because they grow so quickly.
When I pointed out the gauchos or cowboys on the side of the road, Jose responded immediately saying they were called arrieros as gauchos was only the term used for cowboys in Argentina and Brazil, not in Paraguay. Oops, my bad!
Jose told us the town of San Ignacio Guasu was the most religious town in Paraguay as thousands of pilgrims come at Easter with candlelight processions. The main road is then like the 'highway to heaven,' Jose told us. Founded in 1609, it was the first of the Jesuit Guarani Reductions when the Jesuits convinced groups of Indians to live together. The town has since become known for its museum.
In front of the museum was a monument built in 2009 to the local soldiers who fought in the Chaco War from 1932-35.
The angel heads on the wall were uncannily similar to those we'd seen on a visit to several churches in Ethiopia a few years ago.
The pulpit was a representation of the word of God who also created man and the angels to work with us, as Jose explained it to us.
Another famous piece was a rather feminine-looking St. Michael conquering the devil. Small chunks were cut out from the back of the statues so the weight was reduced after the inside was hollowed out.
The next room, the Room of the Paschal Mystery, had statues of the passion and resurrection, including two portraying the Risen Christ greeting His mother with her arms outstretched. Sadly, the cross that was originally in Christ's hand had been taken. Both statues were originally carried in procession on Easter Sunday morning.
The third room was devoted to the Church with a variety of saints. I found the most beautiful to be St. Rose of Lima.
Also in that room was St. Peter with his keys as they were the symbol to enter heaven. The two founders of the order of friars, St. Dominic holding a church and St. Francis holding a book, were also present.
A little chapel, only accessed from a side walkway, had a figure of the young Jesus as he was represented Christ as divine judge and incarnate child. The pew in the still used chapel was from the original church.
It was interesting looking at the far reach of the Jesuits when they set out to evangelize much of the world from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
Out back was the original footprint of the church.
The town's new church was built in 1935.
These were the first paintings we'd seen of friars with indigenous people in a church.
More casa de indios fronted the new church.
We passed lots and lots of sugar cane fields as we headed to Santa Maria de Fe, our final destination of the day. We'd hoped to be there in time for the singing of the vespers at 6 pm sharp at the Communidad San Jose as they shut their doors promptly after that. However, on arrival, we discovered the community of religious was closed that evening as they were training new novices. We were bummed but also quite frankly pretty exhausted as it had been another very long day as you know if you managed to read this long post!
Our lodging in tiny Santa Maria de Fe couldn't have been more charming and delightful with a large bedroom, large sitting room and peaceful backyard where we were served a delicious dinner that Jose had ordered for us several hours earlier. Later, we'd enjoy seeing yet more diocesan art but we really needed a break first!
Next post: Exploring the most beautiful town of Santa Maria de Fe with a very young, but sweet, guide before heading further south into the Missiones area of Paraguay.
Posted at long last on February 13th, 2020, from a still snowy Denver after we had almost no precipitation for two months!
Nice, Annie. I appreciate the religious art, the sense of history and good lives being lived all over the world!
ReplyDeleteSt. Stanislaus of Kostka is a Polish novice of the Society of Jesus. What's he doing in Paraguay? Yes, the lace is just amazing. Janina
ReplyDeleteAndrew and Janina,
ReplyDeleteHappy to know you appreciated the gorgeous religious art we were so lucky to see in Paraguay. What a shame more tourists don't make the effort to travel to that intriguing nation as they are doing themselves a disservice in my opinion. We learned that lots of Jesuits came to Paraguay from many European nations.