My first reaction to the Maltese presepju (crib) at the Vatican was to reach for my smelling salts. I thought it was hideous, in bad taste, and very traditionally Maltese in the same way a balbuljata is.
I will happily admit that I was wrong. I now think of it – and there is not a jot of sarcasm about what follows – as an exemplar of its kind. The people who designed and made it are to be congratulated. I’m told the former include the movers at the Vatican, and that they insisted on a traditional design. Good for them, because, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
A proper appreciation of the presepju requires us first to do away with two things. First, the question asked by all undergraduate students of literature and the visual arts: did the maker really have in mind all the shades of colour and meaning we attribute to the work?
That question is pointless. An interview with Caravaggio would likely prove a major disappointment. For all we know, what he had in mind when he painted The Calling of St Matthew was the next round of whoring and how best to dodge the taxman. What matters is that I can stand in front of that painting for hours and read in it reams of stories. That is what makes it a great work.
It follows that I don’t really care whether or not those who came up with the presepju had in mind anything in particular.
The second notion we need to dispel is that of authenticity. There is, and should be, nothing authentic about a crib. Indeed, the attraction of the genre is that it throws in what seems like a hotchpotch of different times and places.
Take time. Cribs have a habit of collapsing time, so to say. A crib is more a photoshopped, layered time-sequence than it is a snapshot. We know that the three wise men took their time to find the place, and we also know that it is unlikely that the various shepherds, carpenters, millers and bakers were doing their thing at exactly the same time.
Which is fine, because a crib is a sequence of events brought together in one image. The best analogy I can think of is that of Indian miniature paintings in which a single hunter appears to be shooting at 20 tigers at the same time. Only, thankfully for the hunter, it turns out to be one tiger in different stages of the hunt. In this sense, Indian miniatures and cribs are proto-movies.
I quite like the ways in which the symbolism of a fishing boat lends itself. Jesus promised his disciples that they would become the fishers of men
This loose attitude extends to historical time. There is nothing strange about an eight-pointed cross in a crib, simply because cribs collapse ages as well as moments. The cross is not a slap in the face of authenticity but rather an example of the genre.
The same holds for place. The crib at the Vatican is more Gozo than Bethlehem. Which is odd, because Gozitans like to tell us that Gozo is not a presepju. Why then should they take so happily to a presepju as Gozo?
The answer is that, as with time, cribs throw different places together. A successful crib is one that draws viewers into the story through a landscape that is familiar to them.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean tower cranes and urban sprawl, because cribs are about landscapes that are idealised even as they are familiar. The scenery of the Vatican presepju is straight out of the bucolic fictions of Dun Karm, coupled with a sense of mystery lent by the improbable rock formations.
The last bit is also why making a Maltese presepju involves wading in glue, crumpled newspapers, and ġebel tal-gagazz. The dimly-lit recesses – very present in the Vatican example – give the finished thing psychological depth. Readers who are unconvinced could do worse than look up a painting by Fragonard called L’Ile d’Amour.
Which brings me to the luzzu. What on earth is a Maltese fishing boat doing in a Nativity scene? Surely no arguments exist that would absolve the makers of a Visit Malta tourist-brochure lapsus?
Well, yes, there are at least three arguments. First, the luzzu could be seen as the prankster. There is, in fact, a long tradition of adding a slice of humour to the Nativity scene. The Maltese għaġeb tal-presepju (the simpleton, unkindly) is a case in point, but I can also think of the caganer toilet humour of Catalan cribs. These figures are funny partly because they are deliberately at odds with the rest. The luzzu scores very highly on that one.
Second, I quite like the ways in which the symbolism of a fishing boat lends itself. Jesus promised his disciples that they would become the fishers of men. And San Ġorġ Preca, who predictably finds himself in the Vatican crib, was famous for his ‘sajda’ (fishing trip – for souls, that is). So maybe a luzzu is not so out of place after all.
But what about the Visit Malta niggle? I really have no problem with that, any more than I take issue with 16th century Flemish paintings of crucifixions that show Roman soldiers in contemporary Flemish armour. Those paintings are about the crucifixion, but they are also about secular power in 16th century Europe.
In other words, we relate to the stories of the Bible through the salient experiences of our time. Suits of armour are not among those experiences, but tourism is. Take away that contemporary reading and the Bible becomes a fossil.
Someone told me that Bernini would have a heart attack if he could see what we’ve planted in the middle of his piazza. I don’t think so. Bernini designed his braccia (the arms of the colonnade) to embrace an idea of a universal Church for all times and places. The balbuljata that is the Maltese presepju is a modest nod in exactly that direction.
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