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 Following the publication of
Baroque Painting in Malta, author
Keith Sciberras
has completed his work on a book on artist Francesco Zahra – the first in a series of publications on each of the major masters of the era. This year being the 300th anniversary of his birth, the book launch coincides with the opening of a month-long exhibition at the Carmelite Priory Museum in Mdina
on Thursday.
Francesca Vella caught up with Keith Sciberras and research associate Jessica Borg to learn more about the man considered to have been Malta’s foremost 18th century artist.
The Midsea Books publication, which includes contributions by Jessica Borg, is the result of 18 years of research, explained Dr Sciberras.
“The quality of Francesco Zahra’s early work was not the type you would expect from a leading artist, but he grew to become Malta’s most important artist of the 18th century.”
Dr Sciberras and Ms Borg write that Zahra’s early style was largely dependent on the works of his first tutor, Gio Nicola Buhagiar, who will be represented in the exhibition by a Virgin of Sorrows and the Holy Family.
The 1730s were largely dominated by the artistic affinities of these two artists and there were instances when it was difficult to tell them apart.
The bozzetto of St Paul Preaching is a study for one of Zahra’s most ambitious early works.
Zahra reached his early maturity by 1740 when his art started to depart from the manner of his tutor. The charming Immaculate Conception, which will also be on show, is a work which shows stylistic and technical residues of the work of Buhagiar.
By the mid 1740s Zahra was the most important native artist in Malta, only to be challenged by the arrival of the Frenchman Antoine Favray, who will also be represented at the exhibition by means of two of his works, St John in the Wilderness and Rest on the Flight into Egypt.
Zahra marked Maltese mid-18th century art with his timbre and distinctly shaped the character of religious painting. His decorative appeal and theatrical manner complemented the context of the period and made him one of the most fashionable of the Baroque artists who were active in Malta.
“There was a publication on Zahra in 1986, but it needed to be updated. The new book includes many new attributions and a lot of documentation. Many of the paintings in the exhibition were never seen in public.
“We tried not to remove paintings from altars or prominent areas in churches. We went for pictures that are generally overlooked – those that are kept in sacristies for instance.”
The new book clarifies aspects of his biography and solves problems of dating of some of his works. The text is marvellously coupled with photography by Joe P. Borg, said Dr Sciberras.
Zahra was essentially a religious artist and many times was asked to repeat the same theme. The three paintings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are an example of the artist repeating himself.
An Allegory of the Order is a rare sample of his non-religious works and was almost certainly executed for a member of the Knights of St John. It also shows his admiration for the work of Mattia Preti.
A number of portraits present Francesco Zahra as an admirable portrait painter. The portraits on show serve to prove the artist’s ability in transferring the Baroque spirit into portraiture.
The exhibition, entitled ‘An intimate look at the artist’s small works’, will seek to shed more light on the extraordinary range of the artist’s output. Zahra’s style wonderfully captured the spirit of the late Baroque. He was extremely prolific and handled the brush with fascinating ease, and hundreds of his paintings can be found in numerous churches and in private houses.
His extraordinary creative spirit also ensured that his pictures breathed the compositional freshness of mature artists.
Aside from paintings, Zahra produced various designs for church furniture, marble altars, silver artefacts, liturgical vessels and other objets d’art that still survive in different parts of the island.
Francesco Zahra’s output can be divided into a number of phases and the exhibition seeks to trace such evolution and development. It also seeks to re-evaluate some of his most important works of his oeuvre.
Zahra’s interest in proper disegno and in the work of Mattia Preti and of Favray made him modify his style and adopt a more solid approach. His figurative forms changed and the general atmosphere of his works became more sophisticated. His brushwork became freer and his small works show the technical dexterity of this period. The two paintings of the Guardian Angel here exhibited show the freshness of his mature approach.
Although the exhibition will feature a number of works from churches and the public sector, the vast majority will be from private collections.
Dr Sciberras and Ms Borg said this sets a platform for further investigation into Zahra’s stylistic technique.
“Our invitation to people who will be visiting the exhibition is to follow up the itinerary in the book and to visit the churches where Zahra’s work is displayed, such as Ghaxaq, Naxxar, Rabat, Zejtun, Zebbug and Qrendi.”
The Cathedral Chapter will be opening the magnificent Chapter Hall in Mdina on specific days during the exhibition. The Chapter Hall was decorated by Zahra in 1755/6.
Dr Sciberras said the private lenders have become partners in the organisation of the exhibition.
“We are very appreciative to the people who lent us the paintings, but I cannot hide my disappointment at some people and even parish priests who simply refused to lend us paintings that are in perfect condition and could have been used for the exhibition.
The exhibition is being organised by the Carmelite Priory Museum in Mdina, with the collaboration of the University of Malta’s Department of History of Art and ReCoop: Architecture and Fine Arts, and it is sponsored by the Malta Arts Fund, Atlas Insurance, The Old Priory Cafe, Obelisk Auctions, Midsea Books and ReCoop.
The exhibition will be open to the public from Friday 5 November till Sunday 5 December from 10 am till 5 pm against the usual museum entrance fee (€4 for adults, €3 for seniors (60+) and students).
Francesco Zahra (1710-1773)
Dr Sciberras writes that as a young child, Francesco Zahra was brought up in the studio of his sculptor father Pietro Paolo and it is most probable that he was active in assisting his father in his numerous commissions for statuary and sculptured reredoses.
It is the impressive apsidal cap painting of the Institution of the Rosary (Zejtun Parish Church) executed in 1740 that marked Francesco Zahra’s supremacy in both invention and facility with the brush.
It is also here that, aged 30, the artist reached his maturity and made crucial leaps in terms of quality.
His facial types departed from the models of Gio Nicola Buhagiar and acquired those features which are so typical of the artist. Drapery folds became broad and broken and, from the pedantic hesitation of the early 1730s, they now flowed almost out of control.
The 1750s saw another major and crowning achievement for the artist. This was the ceiling decoration of the Chapter Hall (1755-1756) of the Cathedral at Mdina, just mentioned above.
This work can well be considered as a summation of Zahra’s mature pictorial character. The scheme has a large central representation of the Apotheosis of St Paul set within a concave surround displaying allegories of thirteen principal virtues sitting amidst an ostentatious architectural setting.
The compositional vastness of the scheme, despite its own restricted size, allowed Zahra to exercise in his newly found interest for colour and it is here that he perfected the palette that was to characterise his later years of production.
The painterly flair of the large Mdina commission finds remarkable affinities with the spontaneity of his small paintings, paintings which show Zahra reaching the boundaries of high art. The demand for portraiture grew and, similarly, Zahra significantly looked for inspiration at the work of Favray. It is these works that this exhibition seeks to display and celebrate, allowing the spectator and art lover to analyse properly and to intimately understand Zahra’s style.
Francesco Zahra’s inventive capacities are further manifested in the decoration of the two chapels of the Holy Sacrament (1757-1762) and of the Crucifix (1763-1765) at the Cathedral of Mdina, just a stone’s throw away from this exhibition hall within the Carmelite Priory.
A visit to these two chapels will perfectly complement this exhibition. In these chapels, the versatile artist conceived the decorative schemes in the baroque spirit of the ‘total work of art’, where harmony of design, form, and style goes beyond the boundaries of different media.
In this commission, Zahra produced the paintings for the domes, lunettes and pendentives, and designed the marble flooring, altars, and church furniture.
The last decade of Zahra’s life, which coincided with the period when Antoine Favray was in Constantinople, is similarly marked by some important altar paintings and decorative cycles.
Elements of Baroque remain present in his late works and the artist does not show any interest in the continental prevalence of the classicising tradition, even though the quiet feeling of growing old becomes slightly visible.
Zahra remained active right till his death in 1773, which occurred when the artist was still in his early sixties. His demise left a qualitative void in Maltese church art.
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