ThingsAsianImages of Asia - Macau
Images of Asia - Macau, by Cesar Guillen-Nuñez. Detail of São Paolo Church, from an ink drawing by George Chinnery, c. 1830 (Crown Copyright Victoria and Albert Museum.)
Image © 2008 ThingsAsian Booklist
Title: Images of Asia - Macau.
Author: Cesar Guillen-Nuñez.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (1984)
ISBN: 0-19-583842-4.
Details: paperback, 8" x 5 1/4", 76 pages, illustrations and maps.
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From the back cover:
The Portuguese colony of Macau was founded over four hundred years ago by merchant-navigators anxious to find an entrepôt for their lucrative trade with Japan. Established on a narrow peninsula just south of Hong Kong, the settlement quickly developed from a scattering of huts into a prosperous city.
After Japan's expulsion of foreigners in the mid-seventeenth century, the Macanese continued to flourish on the proceeds of the Batavia tea trade and the Timor sandalwood trade. Cesar Guillen-Nuñez describes the key episodes of Macau's history which displayed its vulnerability to Dutch and English aggression and its precarious dependence on Chinese goodwill. Successive crises were survived only through the subtle diplomacy of Jesuit administrators or the stubborn courage of Portuguese governors and soldiers.
Macau's rich artistic heritage is revealed in colour plates illustrating details of little-known paintings and sculpture. An enthusiastic reappraisal of the city's monuments, whose architecture often combines elements of East and West in a characteristically Macanese way, pays tribute to the survival of Macau as ‘one of the most agreeable and genteel cities in the Far East'.
About the Author:
Cesar Guillen-Nuñez is an art historian, curator of art exhibitions, and writer living in Macau.
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