A school of art in the Classical tradition in Valletta is my vision for aspiring artists in Malta. The closest we got to a school following these principles was when Edward and Robert Caruana Dingli were instructors at The School of Art in Old Bakery Street, Valletta.

The group of Maltese artists who graduated there before going overseas to further their studies all gave a good account of themselves, to the point that Carlo Siviero remarked that the group from Malta was too good for his course. The Caruana Dinglis must have been doing something right. By all accounts, art students followed a rigorous programme in drawing from casts and from life models. Learning to see and record what is visible is not something that comes naturally and correct instruction and critiques help the aspiring artist to develop. Learning about the craft of painting and sculpture is also a must. An artist who cannot stretch up a canvas correctly, mix his or her own pigments and prepare their own painting mediums leaves much to be desired. Edward Caruana Dingli certainly was a disciplinarian and, judging by comments his students made, he certainly didn’t advocate modernism and experimentation. Artists like Willie Apap, Esprit Barthet and Antoine Camilleri all had thorough academic training before developing their own style after studying abroad as well as here. There are several artists today who work exclusively from life and within the Naturalistic and Classical tradition. Such as Odd Nerdum whose work speaks for itself.

It would be wise for us to invest our energies in teaching art students of tomorrow how to paint the world as it is, or are they only to conceptualise and install what is the case? What about learning from the Old Masters process and how to eventually adapt this knowledge to an individual idiom? Or are Old Masters just that? I like to think of Ludwig Wittgenstein who stated that “creating something new was stringing together something old in a new pattern”, or better still, acerbic Wittgenstein, “whereof you cannot speak, thereof you must be silent”.

Madeleine Gera

VALLETTA