Art seeped in history

The School of Art in Valletta was a veritable "museum" that required restoration and rehabilitation, Education Minister Dolores Cristina said during a visit during an open day yesterday.

Ms Cristina was impressed by the "aura of history" within the walls of the Old Bakery Street building, which had easels belonging to famous local artists and every room had a tale to tell. Its future was interesting, considering the ongoing search for a museum of modern and contemporary art, Ms Cristina acknowledged.

The school was founded in Casa Brunet, a 17th-century baroque palazzo, in the mid-1920s, and will be celebrating its 85th anniversary next year. Its first directors were the renowned artists brothers Robert and Edward Caruana Dingli.

Ms Cristina augured that its unique elements would not remain fragmented and that there would be more synergy between the educational and cultural aspects, something that was lacking in these spheres. The school was not just an educational facility, she insisted.

The basement of the building, now inaccessible, could also be put to good use and turned into a gallery, where students could exhibit and sell their work, with part of the proceedings going back to the school. It could also be used for pottery and ceramics, it was suggested.

Rainwater may drip through the ceilings and students may have to play musical chairs but it does not dampen their creativity, as the many drawings, paintings and sculptures in the studios prove.

Ms Cristina considered the idea of setting up an arts academy, as yet non-existent in Malta, saying that although it did not entail the mere change of a name, it could be done.

She mentioned the need to ensure that the certification acquired after completing the five-year diploma at the school would be recognised, valid and in line with qualification standards. The Qualifications Council would look into it and make slight adjustments, she said, in order to ensure that the talented artists' achievements would be recognised.

Ms Cristina said a fund for the arts had been set up and would be launched in the coming weeks.

Yesterday's open day - the fourth consecutive one - was held to pave the way for students to attend the summer courses, which were also open to children from the age of eight.

About 100 attended each year, with a complement of 400 in the winter months.

An exhibition of former diploma students was mounted in the evocative halls of the school, displaying the talents that have been honed over the years in the areas of painting, sculpture, printmaking, gilding, gold- and silver-smithing.