Very few get the opportunity to closely appreciate the paintings adorning Maltese churches’ ceilings. A few days before Lija celebrated its village feast of the Transfiguration of our Saviour, journalist Elaine Attard discussed the ongoing preservation work on Giuseppe Calí’s murals, with PrevArti Company Ltd’s founder, head conservator and restorer

Pierre Bugeja.

Mr Bugeja turned his passion and connoisseurship in Calí’s masterpieces into his livelihood by successfully developing his passion into a business concept – PrevArti. The company specialises in the conservation and restoration of sacred art and also other private collections, ranging from paintings on canvas to panel paintings and murals.

Mr Bugeja admitted that sometimes he is so immersed in his work that he forgets about eating. “In our line of work, one cannot look at the business side of things only. The quality of our work is crucial. We have a huge responsibility to protect such invaluable jewels the Maltese inherited from their forefathers. Our profession is like a doctor’s. We cannot afford to make mistakes because they can be irreversible,” Mr Bugeja remarked.

Following the restoration works on the Balzan church’s Calí wall paintings on the choir dome last year, PrevArti was commissioned by Lija parish priest Fr David Gauci to carry out the conservation and restoration of the mural paintings also by Calí on the whole vault in Lija parish church.

Born in 1846, Calí executed the Lija mural paintings in oils directly on the stone surface in 1893. He died in 1930.

Calí, the 19th century’s best known Maltese painter, had experimented and improved this technique while working on his many private and church commissions, including the Porto Salvo Church in Valletta and St Mary parish church in Mosta.

“In some cases, Calí applied pure oil paint pigments combined with an oil binder directly on the stone. In other cases he applied the oil paint over a preparatory thin layer made from white lead and linseed oil to reduce the absorption properties of the globigerina limestone. The application of very thick brushwork and vivid colours are also characteristic of his technique,” Mr Bugeja explained.

He explained how Calí adapted his technique to carry out his work faster. “Calí was very quick in his executions and was envied by many of his rivals, including Ignazio Carlo Cortis. To compete with Calí, Cortis had probably used oil rather than the fresco technique he is mostly renowned for, to paint other paintings in Lija Church,” he added.

To paint rapidly and finish the many commissions acquired especially during the late 19th century, Calí seemed not to have followed the fat over lean rule in the oil painting technique and used to mix varnish with oil as a binder so that the paint dries quickly, enabling him to finish the work earlier. Over time the varnish starts giving the paint a murky finish. Art conservers have to be very careful not to risk removing the colour pigments when removing the varnish during the cleaning process.

“For this reason, over time the paint layer developed a specific type of cracqluere which is sometimes referred to as drying cracks which are very characteristic of his works, even in paintings on canvas,” he added.

In fact, several drying cracks could be seen while closely analysing the paintings, however, it is difficult to notice these cracks from the church’s ground level.

Mr Bugeja explained how the same defect was noticed while PrevArti was restoring Calí’s seven easel paintings commissioned for the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in St Paul’s Bay and on his five altar paintings commissioned for the San Lawrenz Church in Gozo which have just been returned from restoration by PrevArti for this year’s feast.

The Lija restoration project started at the beginning of May. The project, the largest ongoing project for the company which employs eight qualified people in the art of conservation and restoration, involves restoring Calí’s murals from the church’s lantern down to the pendentives.

PrevArti started the restoration process from scratch by first photographing every aspect of the Calí paintings for documentation purposes. Scientific investigations then followed to indicate which areas were originally painted by Calí and which were the retouched parts. The actual restoration work on the paintings of the dome and pendentives could start, after the powdering stone of the lantern was consolidated and restored. At the moment PrevArti is in an advanced stage of cleaning and general consolidation of the dome.

The restoration of the paintings on these two architectural features forms parts of the restoration process’ first phase. This phase is expected to be concluded by the end of the year just before Christmas.

“We hope to finish our restoration work on the dome by Christmas so that the paintings representing the nativity of Jesus Christ could be appreciated by the Lija community at yuletide. Calí had painted the shepherds and the angels according to his interpretation of St Luke’s Gospel. He then used St Matthew’s account of the Magi and the star to surround the main scenery where Baby Jesus was born. Baby Jesus is depicted in the hands of his mother the Virgin Mary flanked by her husband Joseph and the angels,” Mr Bugeja said.

Beneath the dome, on the four pendentives, Calí depicted the four prophets of the Old Testament, Isaiah, David, Daniel, and Jeremiah. Tests have already been carried out to identify the safest and most efficient cleaning agent and the ideal consolidant which should be used to preserve and stabilise the damaged and flaking original paint layer and to remove the accumulated dirt and pollutants from the surface of the paintings. This large scale restoration project will be carried our in seven phases spread over four years.

The Church first addressed the water infiltration problem from the outside, which beleaguered the paintings on the dome and the church’s vaulted ceiling. Then PrevArti moved on to carry out emergency treatments to consolidate the paintings and prevent the loss of further paintwork.

“Unfortunately, the wall paintings are in a very bad shape. The main problem areas are the dome and the vault. The problems are directly related to past rain water infiltration from crevices and defects in the dome and vault structure. The oil painting on stone technique is considered a precarious technique because of its conservation, especially where there is a problem of water infiltration or rising damp,” Mr Bugeja said.

On oxidation, the oil medium forms a film on the surface which is impermeable to water and therefore blocks the transpiration of the stone. This in turn reduces the evaporation rate of moisture present in the stone and therefore favours the crystallisation of salts referred to as sub-efflorescence. When water infiltrates through crevices, weak points and stone capillaries, it will dissolve the salts within the construction materials and deposit in liquid form behind the layer of oil paint. When atmospheric conditions are favourable for water to evaporate, the soluble salts will eventually become solid again and crystallise behind the paint layer causing internal pressure between the stone and paint layer, leading to fractures in the stone structure and flaking of oil paint layer as in the case of Calí’s wall paintings at Lija parish church.

“The dome presents several problems due to such water infiltration, which caused flaking of the paint layer and a blanching effect. A sort of white veil over the affected paint areas can be noticed on its surface. This phenomenon is irreversible and interferes with the images, hindering the full appreciation of the paintings’ details. Problems of water infiltration in the dome are not recent but it is evident that this was also an inherited problem, as past restoration interventions both on the exterior and the interior of the dome show. The paintings in the dome just like the rest of the vault paintings in the church were restored in the past by artist and restorer Raphael Bonnici Calí between 1946 and 1949 and later in 1973. Signatures on the paintings testify to this. Nowadays, we make sure that restoration today is less invasive in respect of the artist’s original work,” Mr Bugeja added.

During the preliminary phases of this restoration project, it was discovered that in the 1970s viscous oil was directly injected into the stone structure of the dome both from the exterior and the interior, through the paintings’ surface, in an invasive attempt to solve the problem of water infiltration, he said.

It is difficult to say whether this treatment was effective or not, however, today it can be observed that the treatment has unfortunately stained the paintings with oil drippings irreversibly. Additional problems such as reversibility and consequent over-painting, need to be tackled during this restoration intervention.

Fine dust deposited on the paintings’ surface, dirt and grime due to candle smoke and other air pollutants that accumulated over time created a greyish film on the surface and is hindering the original brightness of Calí’s palette.

Following the restoration of the paintings in the dome, pendentives and the conservation of the gilding decorations, the PrevArti conservators intend to start phases two to seven, to restore Calí’s wall paintings in the nave, transepts and choir area which are also in a very bad state of conservation.