The beheading of Ignez : Katabasis, Ezra Pound and Three Maltese Artists

Abstract

This work engages with the question related to the connections between selected artists originating from different cultures and artistic spheres who, unbeknownst to them, have all embarked on the same quest. I have chosen Ezra Pound’s (1885-1972) A Draft of XXX Cantos (1930) and I have attempted to see the correlation between Pound and how three Maltese artists – Ġoxwa Borg (b. 1961), Caesar Attard (b. 1946), and Anthony Catania (b. 1969) – have reflected parallel preoccupations in their works. Such a comparison begets a fundamental and profound common denominator. All three, like Pound, have assumed the role of resonating humankind’s echo of its own Being and presence in this world. The three of them, also similarly to Pound, reveal an intense hearing into the multi-level depths of humankind’s quest for the holy grail of meaning and essence. In this respect, these three artists constitute a vital link with the present call to go back to the Platonic cave, after facing the light and having broken with the contemporary scene characterised by fetish and inauthenticity. These three artists have so far succeeded to a remarkable extent in this quest through their polyphonic aesthetic philosophy, one which aesthetically sublimates moral and ethical actions using subversive undertones. [Excerpt from the Introduction]