The Knight artist

International Institute for Baroque Studies

The Journal of Baroque Studies Number 01 Volume 02 –

Publisher: University of Malta - 2017

From this anthology of articles, I choose to begin with Marie Claire Finger’s The Knight Artist Lucas Garnier and his role in mid-Seventeenth Century painting in Malta.

I had already heard the author deliver a paper on roughly the same subject at the Zebbug parish church some time ago.

Lucas Garnier, a Frenchman, became servant-at-arms in the Order of St John through his art and his family connections.

His arrival in Malta and his painting career took place when there was no important artist working in Malta. Although he does not rise to the level of Mattia Preti, nor that of Caravaggio, Garnier seems to have arrived in Malta from Rome around 1639, enjoyed a certain popularity in Malta but was then eclipsed by Mattia Preti who arrived later. Garnier left Malta in the early 1670s and died in France in 1672.

Among his works we list two paintings in St John’s. plus four paintings in the Zebbug parish church, six other paintings for churches in Valletta and 11 other paintings for various smaller churches.

Denis de Lucca opens the series of articles with an article on Mattia Preti, this time not as a painter but as an architect. We know that Preti designed the Sarria church in Floriana which he later filled with his paintings but it may be that Preti had a hand in designing parts of the fortifications that were being built at that time.

AD Harvey contributes an article on the seated nude from Raphael to Ingres where we find the gem that small breasts and a big bottom were regarded as elements of female beauty in sixteenth-century Italy.

The next article takes us in the opposite direction as Regina Deckers discusses the representation of the corpse in Baroque sculpture, aiming to shock viewers into conversion.

Denis de Lucca then contributes an interesting article about a church in Catania, the church of Our Saviour, which began as a Byzantine church, survived the terrible 1693 earthquake and was then enclosed in a Baroque palace, where one can still visit it.

Daniela Mallia analyses the famous painting by Favray showing the first Grand Master, L’Isle Adam, taking possession of Mdina and the diplomatic overtones surrounding the ceremony.

Matthias Ebeyer analyses the Hospitaler saints in the context of the Counter-Reformation but I cannot understand why he did not refer to Mattia Preti’s depiction of many of them in St John’s and to Cynthia de Giorgio’s illuminating book on them.

Charles Savona Ventura describes the Order of St Lazarus, Giuseppe Marcocci writes about the Portuguese Inquisition, Francesco Frasca writes about naval battles from 1550 to 1720 and Stephen C Spiteri describes the tightening vigilance in the fortifications when Malta defended itself against the outbreak of the plague in Messina in 1743. Thanks to this vigilance, the Maltese islands remained plague-free for the remainder of the 18th Century under the Order but then succumbed to one of the worst epidemics to hit Malta in 1813.