Eclecticism and the Baroque Revival in the decorative arts in Malta : the context for Abramo Gatt (1863-1944)

Abstract

This publication, the second volume in the scholarly series Studies in Central Mediterranean Decorative Arts, is dedicated to one of the most remarkably rich episodes in the extraordinary and profuse story of the decorative arts in Malta: the years straddling the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. is book discusses the prevalence of Eclecticism and Baroque Revival currents in the decorative arts in the islands of Malta and Gozo during the height of British colonial domination, and celebrates the islands’ most gifted native designer of the fin-de-siècle, Abramo Gatt (1863-1944), on the eightieth anniversary of his death. There were several Maltese designers who reflected the European predilection for such design solutions, but the oeuvre of Gatt is surely the most emblematic of this fascinating era, and it brilliantly captures the design mood of the epoch, especially in the context of the ecclesiastical decorative arts. Eclecticism became perhaps the most representative quality across the arts in this period, but it was most palpable in architecture, design and the decorative arts. As the nineteenth century drew to its close, this attitude gradually morphed into more ornate heaviness, an exuberance which is symptomatic of the Baroque Revival. This artistic development in design attitudes can be witnessed in both Malta and across the Continent, especially in areas dominated by Roman Catholicism, but not only, as the introductory essay aims to show. [extract]