Love and marriage: ‘Who’s pulling the carriage?’

Picture this. You’re driving along the street and suddenly you come across a pregnant woman pulling a wooden cart. Enjoying a free ride on the cart are her husband, their two kids and their dog.

“It’s a man world” would be one of the expressions that would probably pop up in your mind. But for Paul Caruana who has come up with this watercolour, together with another 19 works which will be exhibited until 31 October at Palazzo De Piro in Mdina, this scene has quite a different meaning. Viewing times are 9.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 9.30am to 10pm Saturday and Sunday.

The horse and carriage scene reminds Caruana of the saying “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage”.

“Composing this watercolour, a thought kept recurring in my head: “Who is the horse that pulls the carriage in a marriage?” Of course, there’s no one good answer to this question. It all depends on how things work out with each and everyone of us,” Caruana said when asked. A theme that’s bound to churn many a heated debate.

In this exposition titled Ħrejjef ta’ Veru (Telltales), Caruana comes up with a pocketful of scenes painted from everyday life which are disappearing fast from our collective memory.

Caruana seems to immerse himself in his treasure chest of memories and comes up with reminensces of his childhood in St Joseph Street, Valletta which used to heave with large families. He also ventures into Rabat and Mdina where his elder relatives resided. We come across the itinerant Grandad Bufula selling fish along the streets of Rabat and a culinary mirage when the artist recalls the mouth-watering sfineġ (cod fingers cooked in batter) his mother used to treat him to after a laborious trip by bus to Mdina. Other episodes take us back some 50 years.

“These 20 scenes that marked my childhood had really happened but can be considered as fairytales because of the passage of time and the change it brought about in our way of doing things.”

Love and marriage