This photo essay offers a variety of representations of the Basilica of Bom Jesus, the structure which famously houses the remains of St Francis Xavier, highlighting its aesthetic transformations historically.
This visual journey is an intervention in debates about the Basilica’s appearance, having arisen over the necessity to alter the building’s iconic look.
The following images may then hasten its replastering, a restoration that not only returns the Basilica to its original form but that will extend its life by protecting it from climate-related damage.
“If looks could kill,” the expression goes. Were this the case, then the 16th-century Basilica of Bom Jesus, one of Goa’s most iconic monuments, may well become a victim of its own famed appearance. A visual history of the structure shows how the Basilica’s look has evolved over the longue durée of its existence.
To withstand further damage from Goa’s annual monsoons, the external surface of Bom Jesus requires plastering. This may suggest that the building’s look will be transformed beyond recognition but as its history, when rendered visually, advises otherwise.
The monument’s present-day unplastered aspect, fixed in the popular imagination by tourism-related visual culture, has cemented the iconicity of the building while simultaneously relying on its historic acclaim as a symbol synonymous with Goa.
Yet, as these images show, how the Basilica is viewed is as much a product of deliberate alterations as it is of that view being influenced by the power of representation itself.
As philosopher Jean Baudrillard contends in his essay “Simulacra and Simulation”, the real only exists in the possibility of its representability. Put differently, we only see what is made visible to us, but more so in how it is made visible.
In the case of the Basilica, that contemporary Goans believe its current unplastered look has always been its only reality derives from specific political manipulations and historical occlusions. Today, a generation of Goans has grown accustomed to seeing the Basilica’s exposed laterite walls, but this is not how it appeared until about 70 years ago.
It was the former director of the Department of Monuments in Portugal – architect-restorer, Baltazar da Silva Castro – appointed by the colonial government to Goa, who in the 1950s brought about the dramatic transformation of the Basilica by having its external plaster removed. Only from that point on was the underlying laterite stone left exposed.
Intended to “age” the look of the already ancient building – the construction of which began in 1594 – the renovation took place during a period of rising anti-colonialism globally and was politically motivated.
Attempting to provide ocular proof of the longevity of the Portuguese presence in Goa, the aging of the Basilica was also meant to be indicative of the long-standing aesthetic influences of Iberian culture on Goan architecture.
Yet, the Basilica is uniquely Goan in its genesis, even as it remakes European design elements.
Significantly, the Basilica’s present image has been frozen in time by its simulacral (or representative) and recursive use in a slew of representative objects and advertisements, most having to do with promoting Goa as a holiday destination.
This surfeit of latter-day representations could be countered by institutional authorities making the public aware of the visual history of this building in its earlier plastered manifestations.
Resurfacing older images of the Basilica could inspire the Goan public to see that, of the many forms the building has taken, its latest unplastered appearance has only occupied the shortest period of its lifetime.
Such visual education may then hasten its replastering, a restoration that not only returns the Basilica to its original form but that will extend its life by protecting it from climate-related damage.
A version of this article was previously published in Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens (Journal of Communication and Languages), No. 57 (2022).)
Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar is an Associate Professor at Goa College of Architecture and the author of Goa’s Bom Jesus as Visual Culture: The Basilica’s Image, Architecture, History and Identity (Routledge 2025).
R Benedito Ferrão is an Assistant Professor of English and Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies at William & Mary, Virginia, USA and its recipient of the Jinlan Liu Prize for Faculty Research.
