Edward Caruana Dingli was a dominant influence on artists in the 30s, owing to his teaching position at the Government School of Art. But he was also a very fine academic portrait painter.
Nadine Debattista Briffa’s article on Caruana Dingli is a pleasant aperitif for the great exhibition which Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti is planning to hold on the artist at the end of next year.
Her paper gives important details about the artist’s life that are essential to understand his oeuvre.
Emvin Cremona was one of Caruana Dingli’s outstanding students and went on to earn a pre-eminent place in local sacred art.
Mark Sagona writes about the rise of modern sensibilities in Maltese sacred art in which Cremona was to play a gigantic role, helped, unfortunately, by the untimely death of his great friend and artist Anton Inglott.
Sagona contributes a paper about the changing ethos of church art in post-war Malta. The Church was potentially the most important local patron and one had to tread carefully not to offend the powers if one hoped to get any commissions.
Cremona himself refused to join the Modern Art Circle when it was set up in 1952, lest he would be seen as a revolutionary artist.
Yet he succeeded in making his way into the system and gradually introduced his own unmistakeable style.
The other great Maltese artist of the early 20th century was Giuseppe Calì, who for decades dominated sacred art in the islands.
Prof. Mario Buhagiar gives us snippets of the Calì family history in an article illustrated with old
photographs.
The Calìs originally came from Naples. Buhagiar throws much light on the artistic activities of the family in Naples and recounts a couple of anecdotes connected with the move to Malta in 1840 and also Giuseppe’s early life.
Two other papers deal with military matters. Robert Attard writes about ‘The French Revolutionary Army in Malta: Some rare relics from the Army of Egypt’.
On the other hand, Denis A. Darmanin recalls the presence of Britain’s Indian Army in Malta 130 years ago.
Joanna Lace interprets a painting of St Laurence at the Wignacourt Museum in Rabat that could well have been painted by Adam Elsheimer – a German artist who has been greatly revalued in recent years.
Albert Ganado continues to share items from his priceless collection. This time it is a scene in the Rabat catacombs, probably by De Angelis, and a Grand Harbour view ascribed to Michele Bellanti.
Dr Ganado also contributes a paper about the dismantling of De Rohan’s monument in St John’s. The ongoing restoration at our national monument is not without its occasional controversy but this is nothing compared to what took place in the 19th century in the chapel of France when some bright spark had the idea of changing its baroque decorations to fit with contemporary Nazarener ideology.
One illustrious victim was the monument to Grand Master de Rohan, designed by Antonio Grech, which was dismantled. One protester was Count Vincenzo Fontana, who conducted a great campaign in favour of the old monument, and who even commissioned Charles Brocktorff to sketch the original monument side by side with the new one. Ganado also throws light on the background of the only woman to have been buried in St John’s.
Source: The Sunday Times, November 2, 2008