Sacred/Religious Art Biennale in Malta

When Pope John Paul observed ‘Art is prayer with colour ..’ it aptly describes how Artists and the Church have always worked very closely together in Malta to convey God’s message. From the richly embroidered banners strung across the streets on Feast Days and the dramatic life size tableaux carried on Good Friday, to the eloquent classical paintings of Biblical scenes and lives of Saints in Art Galleries, Museums and Churches, Art has manifested the Christian message everywhere.
However Monseigneur Professor Vincent Borg, Art Historian and Chairman of the Mdina Cathedral Museum Committee is steadfastly working at encouraging new contemporary sacred art and since 1996 has been responsible for organising a series of exhibitions in this genre. They are now held every other year throughout Lent until just after Easter in the huge arched vaults of the Cathedral Museum. Mgr Borg was at pains to assure me that, like the Royal Academy it is open to everyone including foreigners, and this year artists from Poland and Italy are taking part. He is anxious for artists to find a new voice and style just as Rubens and his contemporaries broke away from Gothic Art to develop their own individual styles within Baroque. He wants them to move away from copying old styles, which have mostly come from foreign artist like Caravaggio, whose Beheading of St John the Baptist is now given a whole room in St John’s Cathedral.
At the Grand Opening of this year’s exhibition on Sunday March 12th it was obvious from talking to the Archbishop of Malta, His Grace Msgr Paul Cremona, who had come to celebrate the Inaugural High Mass in the Cathedral, that he was equally enthusiastic. He observed that from the time of Fra Angelico the Church had always used Art to teach and express Christian feelings. It was difficult to understand God’s message without help and visual aids were indispensable. He emphasised that we are always needing new sensations which help us to reach divine insights and reflect inner faith and render the invisible visible. He was delighted with the progress of the exhibitions or Biennales, as they are known.
His Eminence Cardinal Francesco Marchisano has also been a firm supporter from the beginnings and had been invited to open the exhibition but was unable to attend in the end through illness.
The committee of judges consists of six artists and six art critics and three themes had been suggested to guide the artists God is Love, The Eucharist, and Mary, the Mother of the Church. But the artist was free to choose any other theme. Christ and the Virgin Mary were the two most popular themes chosen, as they had been over the years, but the number of works on Saints had gone down this year.
Many of the 72 works exhibited expressed very personal spiritual approaches - some quite disturbing like Raymond Buttigieg’s Agony on the Cross, a disembodied head with hanging open mouth on a twisted cross of spiky branches and Valerio’s Schembi’s The suffering Servant, a rather gruesome ceramic representing the wounded side of Christ. There was also Spilt Wine at the Last Supper by Damian Ebejer with the red wine soaking into the spotless white cloth and seeping into the broken bread. Some were more narrative using an old Palestinian background and costumes in realistic scenes like Raymond Abela’s ceramic Marriage of Cana and Marco Arcidia’s oils on gold panel Christ Calming the Sea. A minority used iconography but Jessica Debattista created a fine Mary, Mother of the Church by adding modern touches to the traditional rules using mixed media on perspex. Normally the background begins dark but by adding lighter colours the spiritual progress is manifested and finally the name is written over the head. The artists also has to pray continuously for guidance while painting. Ms Debattista has added anonymous figures of the apostles and picked out the colours of the background cloth to illuminate the rest of the picture. The child Jesus hugs his shapely mother round the hips in a very human way.
Overall there was extraordinarily exciting conceptual and visual variety with the majority of artists being long standing professionals and a few new exhibitors.
We stood in front of ‘The Return of the Eschatological Christ’ a water colour with an abstract pattern enshrouding the advancing figure of Christ. The artist John Martin Borg, who has exhibited in the UK and all over the world told me how the dark hues at the back represent moments of depression and confusion frequently felt by him but they dissolve within the light of the resurrected Christ depicted here by the golden and white of the virgin paper. This confirmed for Mr Borg that the resurrected Christ was always there for him and anyone who needed him.
I was also moved by Frederick Gingell’s ‘Mary treasured all these things and pondered upon them in her heart’ [Luke 2. 19]. A realistic close up of the Virgin Mary’s face, her hands clasped under her veil looking at us with a certain sadness and apprehension and yet also joy and fulfilment.
Another very beautiful and touching ceramic was Mario Sammut’s ‘Destiny’. The fragile and suffering crucified Christ figure is stretched out like plasticine encased within three huge boulders representing Divine Love. Mr Sammut sees it as an inspiration to ‘approach our own destiny and bear our own cross with all its problems which fade out through death to release us into the fathomless bounty of Divine Mercy.’
Since 1996 Mgr Borg has edited a beautifully produced colour catalogue with full page colour photographs of all the exhibits with explanatory text and contact details of the artist and have apparently become collectors items. Though now nearly 80 the indefatigable Monseigneur’s zeal knows no bounds and he is now planning to extend the theme of modern Christian Art for longer periods within rooms of the Cathedral and eventually a permanent exhibition on show.

For further information on the exhibition telephone the Mdina Museum on 00 356 2145 4697 Email info@maltachurch.org.mt