https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/8826 2026-04-28T02:02:57Z 2026-04-28T02:02:57Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/15565 2025-03-26T07:57:53Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Ta’ Braxia protestant cemetery 1857-1900 : a case study in funerary art & architecture Abstract: The aim of this dissertation is that it will serve as a reference point in Malta’s cultural and artistic sector by highlighting the influences of funerary art, the development of style, cemetery planning and symbolism in Ta’ Braxia Protestant cemetery. Funerary art in nineteenth century Malta deserves study for it represents the change in sensibility that led to a new consciousness towards death, depicted not only in the new design of the urban cemetery, its architecture and landscape, but also in the ephemera related to death, dying and the funerary monuments. Ta’ Braxia brought many innovations to the island which represent a break from its past; these include social sanitation and urban reforms as well as new artistic sensibilities. It established nineteenth century laws, society, sanitations, customs and architecture for Malta’s first urban cemetery. Ta’ Braxia helped to implement the then contemporary consciousness towards death and burial that would eventually led the island to modernism. However, these changes were not willingly embraced by the local Catholic Church and what makes Ta’ Braxia cemetery more unique is that it broke new ground and that happened during the Protestant - Catholic tensions. Cemeteries are often considered to be places of a disturbing nature but their funerary art provides fascinating information which mirrors social preoccupations on how death was understood and how the deceased ought to be commemorated. Although Ta’ Braxia has been neglected over time, it remains to this day an oasis of rest and contemplation. Ta’ Braxia gives a clear understanding of funerary art and architecture in the late nineteenth century, its approach to death and the importance of the century’s visual and architectural qualities. In its own right, funerary art certainly serves to highlight this transient artistic relationship with the deceased and the beyond. Description: M.A.HIST.OF ART

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/9139 2019-06-11T08:07:10Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The creative collaboration between painters and photographers in Malta : two case studies Abstract: The dissertation is structured around four main areas of research. Chapter one deals with the invention of photography followed by the preliminary influences it had on the art of painting. Chapter two studies the introduction of photography in Malta and its impact on the artistic scene. The following two chapters focus on the different types of collaboration between Maltese artists and photographers from the end of the nineteenth century to the midtwentieth century. Chapter three looks at the collaboration between Giuseppe CaB and his son U go who photographed Margaret, Giuseppe Cali's daughter, wearing biblical costumes and posing in various ways to mimic biblical characters. These photographs served Cali as an important visual tool to depict religious themes. Giuseppe Cali also collaborated with professional photographer Richard Ellis in a genre painting. The period covered is the 1880s and the 1920s. Chapter four focuses on the work and studies of Edward Caruana Dingli and his collaboration with Richard Ellis in the 1920s. Edward's relationship with Ellis developed into a business association and they promoted their work for the tourist industry. Ellis also photographed Edward's paintings for documentation purposes. Robert Caruana Dingli collaborated with Ellis too by exhibiting his works at his studio. Robert also made use of a photograph taken by Ellis for a posthumous portrait. The Caruana Dingli brothers experimented with their own camera and some of their photographs have been selected and juxtaposed to their paintings in order to draw comparisons. The two case studies on the collaboration between artists and photographers and their own use of photography will provide an understanding of how painters responded to the influence of photography and how it provided them with expanded and more dynamic visual possibilities afforded by it. This work is mainly based on the primary documents of academic books, journals and thesis, and photographs mostly gathered from the private collection of Casa Rocca Piccola, Ian Ellis archives and family albums belonging to the artists under study. These photographs contain essential material which helps to compare with paintings executed by painters who used them as a visual source for their creative inspiration. Literature review, personal diaries and letters, various articles from local newspapers from the late nineteenth century and mid-twentieth century have been vital material to build the reference base for this dissertation. As a secondary source, I relied mainly on interviews with family members of the painters and photographers. The main challenge encountered was the lack of information on photographs in hand and the absence of written documentation on how painters reacted to the invention of photography and how it influenced their work. Another difficulty was to compare Giuseppe Cali's paintings in various churches to photographs taken by his son Ugo, and further study is required to identify more photographs to Cali' s paintings. Description: B.A.(HONS)HIST.OF ART

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/8895 2016-09-28T08:41:29Z 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The nude in the work of early 20th century Maltese artists : 1900-1950 Abstract: This dissertation documents and analyses a large number of works of the nude dating to the early twentieth century, executed by various Maltese artists. In the majority of cases, these works were largely scattered in private collections around the island and were never published. Moreover, monographs on Maltese artists tend to somehow isolate the artist’s works from those by his peers and, therefore, seem to lack a comparative approach. This is the very first time that a wide spectrum of works of the nude, executed by Maltese artists, are being analysed under one roof. Needless to say, the context into which these works were produced is also discussed. The early twentieth century Maltese context was largely prohibitive of issues of nudity due to the major influence the Catholic Church exerted on Maltese society and culture. Back then, the Church was viewed as the major shaping force of cultural identity. The unclad body was viewed as bad and, thus, was considered immoral to having young art students attending life classes where models undress themselves for art’s sake. These circumstances and prejudices that the body was always connotated with, prevented the subject from rooting itself deeply into the Maltese artistic scene of the time. Nevertheless, artists still struggled to introduce it. Probably, the most mentioned of all is Josef Kalleya, who courageously started life-classes in his private studio in Valletta as a reaction to this banishing of the nude. Before this period, the nude was almost only explored in the religious realm, being included in narratives as to justify its appearance. The nude symbolised defeat and degradation of humanity. Dr. G. Schembri Bonaci’s papers on the nude in Maltese art were highly significant in providing me a solid ground on which the works could be analysed and discussed. These papers compare and contrast the Maltese context with the international, as to not completely isolate the Maltese islands from their real context. Although strategically the Maltese islands are isolated from the other European countries, its artists had since the baroque period travelled to Roman academies for study purposes. Mainland Italy was, therefore, a major shaping force for the Maltese context. Therefore, this dissertation contrasts the Maltese works with the international specimens which the former found really appealing at the time. This attempt reached rather interesting conclusions, continuing to emphasise that the Maltese early twentieth century artists kept close ties to the Italian mainstream, whilst ignoring the avant-garde principles such as those tackled by the futurists and other international artists, who also worked in the art capital of modern art, Paris. This situation seems to have channelled the Maltese artist into exploring the traditional figurative scheme. Other important facets discussed in the following pages are the definitions of the nude and the naked. Kenneth Clark’s and John Berger’s attempts to categorise works of the nude under these two states, proved to be very instrumental in influencing my approach towards the Maltese specimens. Therefore, very modestly, this dissertation may be considered as the very first attempt at categorising very systematically the works under either nudity or nakedness. There are some works, however, which can fall under both categories. In these cases, the work was grouped under its most predominant form of the two. Being very central in the evolution of art, the nude is a widely debated subject. This encouraged various reactions to challenge each other and to provide an interesting array of theoretical work to the reader spectator. I sincerely hope that this dissertation provides a valid attempt at tackling the nude in Maltese art and at provoking and contributing ideas in a similar manner. Description: M.A.HIST.OF ART

2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/8815 2023-09-05T07:40:29Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The artistic development of the holy water basin in the Maltese Islands Abstract: This dissertation attempts to study the artistic development of the holy water basin over the centuries in churches and chapels across the Maltese islands. The subject is introduced in Chapter 1 which traces the purpose and use of holy water in the Christian and other religions, delves into the evolution of rituals associated with the use of holy water in different religions and how these have been incorporated around vessels or fonts at places of worship. The development of shapes, styles and symbolism on holy water basins is also examined in this chapter (the terms 'font' and 'stoup' are used throughout to describe the particular artistic presentation rendered to the vessel). It also sets the tone for the following chapters which cover, in turn, the chronology of different art periods and the influences which European artists and works have had on the local scene. Hence, Chapter 2 tackles the Late Medieval to Early Modern period (1300 - late 1590s), Chapter 3 the Baroque period (1600 - late 1790s), Chapter 4 the 19th to the early 20th Centuries (1800 - late 1920s) while Chapter 5 looks at Modern and Contemporary works (1930s to date). A key, underlying theme of the dissertation is the importance of the artistic evolution of fonts and stoups in Europe and their possible stylistic influences on Maltese works. In fact each of Chapters 2 to 5 follows a pattern where first prominent works for the period are examined and, as much as possible, accompanied by a brief discussion of the artist, then leading on to the Maltese and Gozitan landscape. The concluding Chapter 6 summarizes the findings of the dissertation and proposes areas for further research and future study. Tables of complementary information are presented in Appendix I while Appendix II lists plates and illustrations (PL) referred to in the body of the research, mainly of fonts and stoups in Europe which transverse across the respective artistic periods and correspond with the chapters. The dissertation is supported by a detailed inventory of holy water fonts and stoups from a large cross-section of churches, chapels and museums in the Maltese Islands. About 150 sites were visted in order to arrive at a fairly wide and representative sample of works and 116 were ultimately selected for a study and detailed catalogue entry (CE), which includes type, style, material, dimensions, description and, when available, artist and dating information. Because the subject has been studied only very incidentally and is marked by a dearth of primary sources, with occasional secondary material, a wide range of research and study methods were employed. These include: a. General literature review, ranging from primary to secondary, from archival documents and papers in parish offices to books, journals, web-sites and all the way to festa booklets; b. Reference and consultation with electronic library sources; c. Visits to churches and chapels in the Maltese Islands and, selectively, in Europe; d. Interviews and referrals to: i. priests, rectors and custodians of churches and chapels; ii. church and art historians; iii. academics in the fields of architecture, art and liturgy; and iv. artists, sculptors, marblers and merchants. As noted above, the conduct of the research for this work was severely constrained by a lack of available primary sources. Indeed, a recurring drawback was the lack of documented information that could be retrieved from archives or parish offices. In the vast majority of cases, rectors, priests and archivists, when visited, would shrug their shoulders and admit that nothing much used to be kept on fonts and stoups. This limitation meant that extensive reference had to be made to secondary sources, interviews, studies of artistic styles as well as of other works of art being executed in Maltese churches and chapels in the relevant periods. Description: B.A.(HONS)HIST.OF ART

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z