Emanuel Félix notes that “The paracletian cult and the Feast of the Emperors accompanied the first settlers, first in Madeira and later in the Azores, where the Impérios were revived. Like the old confraternities of Northern Europe, they had their ‘maisons du Saint Esprit’ and a granary or storehouse to keep offerings of bread, wine, and other natural foods.”
In this work by Carlos Carreiro, part of the Fine Arts Collection at the Museu de Angra do Heroísmo and currently displayed in the ante-sacristy of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Guia, one of the most iconic Impérios of Terceira Island is carried by a festively dressed couple, symbolically representing the strong popular devotion to the Divine Cult and its spread through emigration.
However, the ethnographic dimension is humorously subverted: a house in Angra do Heroísmo is transformed into a small paper house, and an American military airplane is introduced, creating a satirical, comic effect.
Carlos Carreiro, an Azorean painter born in Ponta Delgada in 1946, was described by art critic Fernando Pernes as the “Hieronymus Bosch of consumer society,” due to his narrative figuration technique that combines objects and characters in surprising scales and incongruous contexts.
Text : Ana Lúcia Almeida
