Picture in Focus: The Hill of Miracles by Jose Francisco Borges

February 2, 2020

Picture in Focus: The Hill of Miracles by Jose Francisco Borges

This week's featured new artwork in the on-line Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is a large format print from Brazilian Folk Artist Jose Francisco Borges that I have long admired but only recently acquired, offering another whimsical glimpse into the grassroots faith of the hardy residents of Borge's home in the sertao region of Northeastern Brazil, an arid outback famed as the country's Wild West. In The Hill of Miracles, women (no men!) make their way on their knees up a rough incline edged with spiny plants and prickly pear cacti to receive a blessing from a holy man. As the wily serpent in the tree bears witness, the road to faith can be a slippery slope! The bearded friar beloved of the birds, is, no doubt, the recently named, Venerable Damiao de Bozzano, an Italian-born priest of the Capuchin order and hero of popular folklure, who spent over six decades in Brazil, serving as an intinerant pastor to the people of the Northeast. The new print joins others by Borges and his family dynasty of folk artisans in the gallery of the Brazilian Cordel Woodcuts page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)