Gabriel Caruana: An Artist From Malta

By Victor Debattista

Caravaggio's brief stay in Malta, from 1606 to 1608, left a pictorial influence which lingered long after his departure. Under Neopolitan direction, which opened up Caravaggio's chiaroscuro with a suffused light, the favored pictorial style of the Church in Malta was obtained. This bright Baroque was an ideal complement to the warm yellow of the globigerina limestone used in church construction. With the Church acting as the major patron of art well into this century, this style so profoundly determined Maltese expectation of art that today the Maltese audience for a different art is disappointingly small. Despite this challenge, a number of Maltese artists in this century have rejected the Baroque for a more modern sensibility. One of these artists is Gabriel Caruana.

Born in 1929, Caruana's artistic education began at the Malta School of Art (1953-59), where he studied under George Borg and Emvin Cremona. He further studied at the Accademia Pietro Vannucci in Perugia (1965), the School of Arts and Crafts in Detroit (1966) and the Istituto Statale per la Ceramica in Faenza (1967). Caruana's art consists mostly of paintings and ceramics. Caruana, in fact, was among the first Maltese artists in modern times to work in ceramics.

Caruana's primary inspiration is life; not human life (people seldom appear in his art), but what is ordinarily considered simple life. Caruana freely admits to being inspired by "little worms". This inspiration either manifests itself in a directly representational form, or more frequently, is found in the biomorphic objects from which he builds his abstract works. The surface of his ceramics and paintings appear strewn with odd flowers, worm segments, fish scales, mushrooms, striations as on some animal, etc. The multicolored glazes that cover his ceramics resemble lichens on a rock surface. Caruana has imagined a whole biota, often as fragmentary as the fossil shellfish common in Maltese limestone deposits.

Caruana's art is not only inspired by nature, but in certain ways, imitates it (imitation being the highest form of flattery). Echoing the dynamicubiquity of life, he considers any surface suitable for his painting includingchairs, pipes and odd pieces of wood. In his studio is a plan for a remarkable project: painting on the reservoir tanks at the power station. (Unfortunately, funds are not available for this project.) One of his most outstanding series of paintings was executed on the ends of electric cable reels donated to him by EneMalta Corporation. The circular composition, lacking in definite orientation, and bright colors of these paintings are very striking. In them, as in many of his paintings, the aim is simplicity. This absence of artifice in his art is the antithesis of the Baroque sensibility. Some of these works were hung along the outdoor Atriju Vassalli at the University of Malta. There, exposed to the elements, his art was more at home than inside a museum. Caruana's own interest in nature cannot be attributed to a preoccupation with a divine creation. Neither can it be understood as a Romantic/Modernist reflection of the human condition. Rather, his interest in nature, just like a naturalist's, is intrinsic to nature itself.

Apart from the wall paintings at the Hypogeum (probably an expression of a fertility religion), it would be hard to think of another purely local Maltese 'fine art' that is as spontaneous as Caruana's work. As has been pointed out by A.C. Sewter, Caruana's art has much in common with the popular Maltese tradition of the Carnival. This is particularly evident in his vibrant palette, the spontaneity of his work and the simplicity of his compositions. In fact it may come as no surprise to discover that Caruana has actually been responsible for building Carnival floats. It is interesting that of the many festivities celebrated in Malta, Caruana has gravitated towards Carnival, not any of the religious ones. Perhaps this is not hard to understand, Carnival being a celebration of life (and therefore the feast of the devil in the eyes of the pious). The many festas celebrated in the towns and villages of Malta honor the martyrdom of patron saints, hardly a celebration of life.

Caruana is also willing to experiment in other forms besides painting and ceramics. In 1969, Caruana exhibited constructions made of discarded truck tires in the Lobby of the National Museum. The outside of his gallery in Birkirkara is decorated with one of the few examples of his religious art: a door sectioned in thirds and joined to form a cross.

Caruana's departure from past tradition is so complete that he has never done a church commission in his life. But with over 60 exhibits to his credit, there is little doubt that Caruana's art has managed to find an audience, local and international. Caruana has had solo exhibits in Malta, England, Italy and Switzerland. He has also participated in group shows in Malta, Osaka, Detroit, Munich, Tripoli, London, Israel, Melbourne, Faenza and now New York. A number of his works can be found in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta.

Is Caruana's art a suitable expression for a Maltese artist? While one ought not expect an artist to adhere to some vaguely defined national character, there is no doubt that there is, for example, something intimately Italian about the various High Renaissance schools. This question arises since artists in Malta are now at a stage where they are asking a public to reject a tired style with which it is comfortable, in favor of a more modern sensibility. In answer to this, I suggest one looks at Caruana's gallery, il-Mithna ta' Ganu located at Naxxar Road, Birkirkara. This mill was built by Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena in 1724. The building epitomizes the style of minor buildings from the period of the Knights of St. John in Malta. Inside and around this structure, Caruana arrays his art. The result surprisingly does not detract from the mill itself, while adding a spontaneous and irreverent element. Caruana shows us that that which we value of our heritage blends harmoniously with his artistic sensibility.