Changing artistic taste in Malta at the turn of the nineteenth century : a case for the ecclesiastical decorative arts

Abstract

ONE OF THE MORE FASCINATING QUALITIES about the ecclesiastical decorative arts in Malta – an artistically extraordinary field which is in the process of discovery and assessment – is the way they not only reflect the larger context in the other artistic dominions, but more importantly, the manner in which many times they usher in new artistic ideas. Such a scenario took place in Malta in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially within the ecclesiastical sphere, one of the strongest fields of local artistic production. While painting, sculpture and architecture remained dramatically conservative, design and decoration – in the form of liturgical objets d’art and items of church furnishing in silver and wood – shows palpable signs of the artistic change which was concurrently reshaping the artistic world on the Continent. [Excerpt]