Brasilia's Dom Bosco Sanctuary Channels the Prophetic Destiny of Brazil

The city built a monument to a transformational revelation that recognizes a symbolic mission for itself and the country 

 

(As published in the Rio Times)

By Milan Sime Martinic 

 

 

It is said that every country is an evolving spiritual entity grappling with its destiny. Brazil’s capital is particularly spiritual in searching for its soul and personality to symbolize its role in the country’s greater destiny and to influence the national consciousness. 

  

If one could see the light of the spiritual soul of Brasilia it would be a majestic blue as we imagine the heavens to be. If you could enter the spiritual heart of the symbolic and well-thought-out city it would be a grand structure that hides at its center, just under the surface, beating with meaning and destiny and working as an essential tool of the divine forces. It is the blessing and good fortune of all who live and pass through Brasilia that such a place exists, that it is real, and that it is welcoming, and that it has the power to reach into your own soul and thread the cityscape and your moment there as a long line of events destined to be— This transcendental place meant as the spiritual heart and soul of the city is the Sanctuary of Dom Bosco -Santuário São João Bosco- a massive monument to destiny and to the spiritual flags the universe placed there long ago. 

  

Bathed in the blue light that comes through its 80 floor-to-ceiling panels of stained glass, the building that sits along Earth’s 15th parallel throws its image onto those who enter its white marble floors, surrounding body and spirit in an embrace that began in 1883 when the Italian priest and educator Dom Bosco foresaw Brasilia in a dream of prophecy. 

  

Dom Bosco related his dream in which he envisioned an extraordinary New World capital, a utopian civilization that would flourish “at the point where a lake was formed,” between the 15th and 20th parallels to lead a promised land of inconceivable wealth, a great nation. These things will happen in the third generation," wrote Dom Bosco. Brasilia, situated between the 15th and 16th parallels and built in 1956 by the third generation after Dom Bosco’s death, is widely accepted among Brazilians to be that place. 

  

"The mysterious forces that rule the world have acted in such a way as to ... create the opportunity to convert the old dream into reality," wrote Joscelino Kubitschek, the Brazilian president who inspired and spearheaded the construction of Brasilia; the capital is often referred as “the city Dom Bosco dreamed of.” 

Built between 1963 and 1970, the sanctuary is a Gothic-style square cathedral of 80 columns wrapping all four sides and reaching 16 meters high, topped by Gothic arches that evoke sentinels of heaven. Pink stained glass at the four corners gives a preternatural frame to the 12 shades of blue to purplish-blue stained glass that fill the columns in some 140,000 squares designed by Sao Paulo architect Cláudio Naves and manufactured by the Belgian artist Hubert Van Doorne. Dotted with tinier white squares, the blue background looks like a starry sky as you enter and invokes heaven itself, creating a celestial meditative space where many visitors aim to clear the clutter of their lives, get lost in its immensity, and find themselves. 

  

Under this glass-box-and-concrete structure lies Dom Bosco’s Royal Urn, containing the saint’s right arm and visible through a glass frame on the marble floor as you approach the altar along the center aisle. This, designed for the faithful to see the saint and to be seen by him, as do the pilgrims in Dom Bosco’s native Italy where they are said to go seeking in him an encounter with “a father, a teacher, a friend.” Dom Bosco’s right arm is significant because that is the arm used to bless, reconcile, and lead millions of children around the world out of ignorance and poverty through education, says the Catholic church; it is work for which he is recognized the world over and for which he was canonized as a saint. 

Bronze reliefs by artist Gianfranco Cerri at the doors, and the crucified Christ by Santa Catarina sculptor

Gotfredo Thaler complete the geometrical sanctuary. At night, it is illuminated by a single chandelier made of 7400 Murano glass pieces from Venice, giving it what some claim is an otherworldly dimension. 

The sanctuary is the largest spiritual monument in honor of Dom Bosco in the capital district. Along with others around Brasilia, it forms the thread that binds the capital city, holds it, and gives it its spiritual soul. For Brasilia, the sanctuary is its light and heart, a monument to its destiny, and a guide to the mission of Brazil itself. 

  

IF YOU GO: Santuário São João Bosco is located near the city’s Monumental Axis, within walking distance from the Patio Brasilia Mall. It is open daily from 7 am to 9 pm. 

Free. 

 

 

Um Jardin na Minha Lente: Unveiling the beauty of flowers through the lens of Christoph Diewald 

Photographic exposition commemorates the 37th anniversary of Brasilia’s Botanic Gardens turning weeds into works of art

By Milan Sime Martinic 

The walls of the exhibit area of Brasilia’s Botanical Gardens are blossoming with stunning natural beauty in an exhibit that amplifies the garden experience with splashes of color and photographed botanical life through the lens of German-born and longtime Brasilia-resident photographer Christoph Diewald.

His commemorative exposition, Um Jardim de Miha Lente, organized by the Jardim Botanico de Brasilia and produced by Pictura Fine Art explores the remarkable beauty and variety of plants that can be found at the botanical gardens and in the Cerrado biome of central Brazil. The exhibit opened on March 4, and it runs through March 13. 

 

The photographs' larger-than-life perspectives are unique because of their considerably complex composition and execution. There is a reverence in Diewald’s lens, and it is evident in the way he captures excruciating details that give you macro views of leaves, petals, and pistils, and the tendrils that stretch out and twine around below a flower. It takes considerable patience, talent, art, and skill to complete that composition. 

 

Diewald is a self-described amateur photographer but an expert behind the lens even so. His photographs elicit a very visceral connection to the nature that you see through his work. It is art that allows the joyful gift of observing the intricate textures of the flowers, individual petals, the leaves, or something else entirely. It is an opportunity to get up-close with these plants, to feel them with your eyes, and to almost smell them as you get lost in the expertly showcased detail.  

 

The concept for the exposition came from a mentoring program when the 74-year-old Diewald was spurred and inspired into a collaborative project to display his art. It led to the careful selection of 25 pictures of flowers and leaves from a databank of over 1000 of his pictures. Diewald himself has thoughtfully curated the exhibition to project a sense of wonder and mystery through their display and interaction. 

 

There is a meditative quality to some of his photographs, and that comes from a Zen exploration that taught him to let the subject of his art reveal itself in his meditating mind.  

In his photographs one sees parallels with the eloquence of 1980s renowned American photographer Robert Maplethorpe, an unconscious kinship Diewald recognized after-the-fact, when exposed to the powerful work of the master photographer.  

 

Self-taught without any formal photographic instruction, Diewald has developed techniques of his own that are evident in his use of negative space, depth of field, leading lines, and framing that give his work impact in their detail, making them engaging to the viewer. 

  

To take in all the splendor of the exposition requires patience to immerse yourself in each piece of a plant so carefully focused that the senses and the mind have to reconcile the knowledge that it is merely nature and beauty captured so well that it does not seem real. The rewards can be life-enlarging, as when suddenly seeing the reticulate venation on the back of a leaf in labyrinthine detail; this texture, like life itself. interconnected with the whole, complicated in its structure, smooth in its beauty from afar, in elaborate grainy nearness to your senses. 

 

Looking like an up-close view of a supernova explosion in the heavens, a picture of a thousand yellow pedicels ending on dense packs of small white florets is the type of photo that can take your breath away and take you on a journey into the wonderland of the minute life of flowers. 

The art and skill behind the ability to put that image in front of you come from a lifetime of experience seeing life in its important, often unseen detail, not all of it behind a lens. Diewald came to Brasilia in 1994 as a World Bank economist focused on the conservation of tropical forests.  

 

Here, his childhood love for photography and photographing plants encountered the opulence of plant species and the mechanisms to protect and preserve their diversity. Entwined with his respect and appreciation for nature, put his lens and focus on the plants of the Cerrado savannah and the rich examples of plants endemic to the area, Diewald has been perfecting his art and botanic photography style with a passion that reflects not only the talent but also the inner beauty and aesthetic of the artist.  

Recognized by the capital city’s Botanic Gaden in its effort to integrate art and nature, Diewald’s art and style are now on display for Brasilia to see, but the real richness is on both sides of the lens, in the exuberance of Cerrado flora so splendidly captured, and in the eye and the art of Diewald. Both enrich the culture and beauty of the area. 

 

The show celebrated the March 8th anniversary of the Botanical Gardens.