Ramiro Raffaele Calì : a critical appreciation and a gazetteer of his paintings

Abstract

The main purpose of the dissertation, Ramiro Raffaele Cali: A Critical Appreciation and a Gazetteer of His Paintings, is to provide documentation and analysis of the painter Ramiro Raffaele Cali (1881-1945), son of the more famous painter Giuseppe Cali (1846-1930). This also includes the study of the artist's activities and his stylistic development from his formative years until he became independent painter and teacher. The artistic career of the younger Cali moved more or less on the same lines of that of his father. Therefore his works will also be discussed within the context of his father's artistic expressions, comparing and contrasting their works on several occasions. Ramiro Cali is mostly known as a church painter, and he is attributed with having improved the technique of paintings on canvas attached to stone. This will be discussed at some length in Chapter Two. Ramiro Cali was also a restorer of paintings. Restoration works carried out by the painter have not been discussed in the dissertation, since it is very difficult to assess them, as no reports have been recorded and also because students used to help him out with restoration works. It is therefore quite difficult to be able to trace the artist's role in the whole process. The artist also carried works in interior decoration, but these shall be omitted due to the lack of information existing to enable a significant study. Since paintings form the greater part of the artist's career, they shall receive more emphasis and will be discussed at length. The dissertation does not include a discussion on the whole repertoire of the artist. A few minor works had to be omitted to conform within the limits set by the research project, and also because they do not carry significant weight in the critical appreciation of Ramiro Cali's painterly career. Some of the collective commissions in churches will be selectively discussed, according to their importance or significance in the arguments presented. The historical background of a large number of the commissions will be included in the discussion of the works. However, archival research was not always available within some of the parishes, so this could enable further research to be undertaken on some of the paintings. As regards literature on the artist, his name is often mentioned briefly in both scholarly and parochial publications that include descriptions of specific churches and their paintings. The research undertaken by Emmanuel Fiorentino and Louis A. Grasso (1991) on the artist Giuseppe Cali, did shed some light on the son's career, and was discussed at some length whilst indicating Giuseppe Cali's followers in the artistic field. Most of this information was taken from an article written in Lehen is-Sewwa, of January 1982, by Chev. Rafel Bonnici Cali, who was the cousin of Ramiro Cali, and also his student. In the article Bonnici Cali gives an insight on both the artist's career and his life. Another article focused on the life and career of Ramiro Cali, also written by Chev. Bonnici Cali, is found in ll-Korpus, written in 1995. However, there has never been an exhaustive research on the artist. In concluding, there will be an attempt to try and sum up Ramiro Cali's stylistic development and assess it within the artistic context in which he was brought up.