Sometimes contrast in life blows me away. Take the
first photo below, for example, a typical scene I am finding here in Salvador
with hilly streets, scattered housing, and generally what appears to be a mess
of urban clutter. The second picture looks like an abandoned building, but as
it turns out, it is tile shop with an incredible selection of hand painted
tiles from around the world, many very old. Yet you never know what is behind a
door. Today was rainy, so I spent
it with a colleague exploring museums. First was the Museu Arte de Arte Sacra,
the Sacred Art Museum of Bahia. It is part of an old monastery that contains
relics from the 16th-19th century, and figures of
Catholic saints gilded in gold and shimmering silver. I can’t even imagine what
they are worth. The second stop was Museu Carlos Costa Pinto, a mansion still
privately owned by an old sugar plantation family. On display were artifacts of the
elite of colonial times, from Chinese porcelain to crystal chandeliers, to furniture
and knickknacks fabricated of silver and gold, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and rare
woods. And all just a step off the street, through an armed gate, and into
another world.
No comments:
Post a Comment