The ecclesiastical decorative arts in the Maltese Islands

Abstract

The development of the ecclesiastical decorative arts in the Maltese Islands is one of those fields of artistic practice, which, so far, had not yet received any scholarly and academic attention. As a result, the story of church decoration in the Maltese Islands, albeit of utmost importance in the holistic understanding of artistic endeavour in Malta, has been almost totally ignored. Over the ages, since the re-Christianisation of the Maltese Islands in the thirteenth century, church decoration has proved to be one of the keystones of art in Malta. Together with painting, sculpture, and architecture, the decorative arts played a seminal role in the embellishment of the numerous places of worship that dot the islands. This study focuses on the oeuvre of Emanuele Buhagiar who was one of Malta's most important designers of church furniture and liturgical objets d'art.