Robert Caruana Dingli’s next letter to my father Vincenzo, dated April 20, 1915, is among his longest ones – nine pages. Miss O.C., as a possible sponsor of his rather too prolonged stay in England appears again, but the artist is now experiencing the unbearable weight of the financial burden and is planning to leave the Rembrandt with a dealer to sell after the end of the war and his return to Malta. He estimated that a year’s stay in England cost a traveller all of £100.
The uncertainty of his future was now getting at him badly- Giovanni Bonello
He had tried to sell the Rembrandt to the National Gallery, but the experts there shied of taking responsibility of paying good money for a picture without an impeccable pedigree. He still had no doubt about its authenticity, despite the hesitations of famous sapientoni.
Caruana Dingli referred to Father’s subscription to the art magazine Colour, a pioneer in high quality colour reproduction of works of art. He had admired a Moonlight on the Seine by H. Speed, “a pretty little poem ... all glazes, colour very thin owing to the need of dark colour for the evening effect”. More interesting was the ‘group of cows’ by Anne L. Faulkner: the sky all dots of rose madder and purple over the plain blue sky – meant to produce the optical illusion, if viewed from a distance, of a vibrating sky.
This followed the teachings of the painter Alf East (Sir Alfred East, 1834-1913) and “his skies are noble, dignified if not sublime”. Caruana Dingli had tried the technique himself, following exactly East’s suggestions with a “ripping and pleasant” effect. Not the way Faulkner had gone about it – too overpowering “It’s like making a stew of much stronger flavour and so powerful in its taste, that you lose altogether the taste of the fish”.
He then comments on another picture illustrated in that issue of the magazine: Tea by H. Taylor: “I don’t know its object, whether a caricature or a portrait of an ugly old woman that has turned green, probably shocked by the artist’s cheek. Is not that ridiculous and aimless – she is an old hag in green complexion and crimson nose – yet it is not so bad as those I had seen in the exhibitions of the post impressionists”.
Miss O.C. lived in Malta, and Caruana Dingli had tapped her for cash without his father’s knowledge. Vincenzo was now instructed to tell him. He knew that on his return to Malta he would be faced with “all sorts of impertinent and vexing questions... that would really make me wild... if I don’t send them to hell... damn it all, I think I shall not appear for once in Sda Reale”. He suggested that Father could get a job as a picture restorer in London quite easily, though it was far more difficult for himself to do that: “Oh this blasted war has caused awful trouble, everything has changed so much here”.
The letter Father had drafted (in Italian) meant to be sent to Marius Pictor had still not been posted – it all depended on whether Dingli got the money from Miss O.C. or not. The uncertainty of his future was now getting at him badly – it also influenced the size of the canvas he painted: “I never know when I may need to take it with me on a voyage”. Besides, to paint large pictures, “one’s mind must be at rest”. His hands were itching to start on such a large picture: “I have practised a lot on different experiments that now I feel I must do some serious work”.
His last paragraph turned into another gush of uncontrolled nostalgia: he missed Father’s company and conversation badly, and “please do let all my people (know) that I am enjoying a very good health in spite of my great yearning to embrace them all – poor Mother, I hear from you she misses me very much... so my dear father and my dear sister Nina, I miss them all very much indeed (no mention of Edward) – Ruy”.
Five days later Caruana Dingli writes to Father again. We now discover that O.C. is his cousin who sent him a really nice letter – but no money: “she had such a lot of extra expenses and the rest of lots of excuses”. This rejection had decided him to start preparing to leaving London immediately, “probably next Saturday”, leaving the Rembrandt with a trusted person or friend. He intended to book on the P&O steamer Medina.
The Channel crossing posed major risks: “we hear every day ships being torpedoed... but don’t mention this to Father, he will be terrified”. He promised to send my father a telegram to inform him of his departure – but only if he still had the cash for that – he was down to his last pennies. Caruana Dingli instructed Father to inform the Spagnola of his impending arrival: “She would be greatly delighted, I am sure”. He had discarded the much faster option of travelling overland by train – “travel through France is very difficult”.
Dingli pleaded with Father not tell anyone of his imminent return – he did not fancy any inquisitive questioning by nosy busybodies. And to greet him on arrival he wanted only his people and him. Packing promised to be very difficult as he had so many sketches – he would have to leave a number of his books behind. He repeated that O.C.’s refusal had made him adamant he could stay in London no longer. He would come back to Malta and “start again my former profession – lessons again”.
His stay in England had enriched his knowledge – he had attended a number of lectures at the National Gallery and undergone other tuition. “I have digested many things that before had escaped my notice, or better still, I could not see clear before”. He had learned a lot about ‘composition’.
This gave him the opportunity for yet another extended and virulent poke at Giuseppe Cal “mind you, not the elementary composition that C. talks about, that is a stage too silly and any boy would understand as much – No, I mean the higher aims of composition in values, masses and dignity; this latter case is absolutely ignored by C. and his composition is never harmonious that locks all his scattered figures in one made (main?) idea – his pictures are what I call maps and very vulgar too.
“He never sees in mass and as regards being decorative, that has never been detected in all the work I had seen of his – in short, where dignity enters, he is out of it every time, so as regard colour harmony – he always spoils his melodies by the crude trumpets and drums he introduces that do not let you hear softly the motive of each bit of work he tries. He is discordant, besides vulgar, in short he is the banda ta’ Indrì, they hurt your ears and most painfully because each man in the group wants separately to attract your notice, for instance the cornet and the drum (his red and blue).
“Oh, I think he is really about the limit and his influence is absolute poison to any right-minded student – but you see I can’t help mentioning him every time I write because he is a splendid example of what not to do for students, or say beware of the devil, yes he is a blinking example of corruption and a damn cheek (check?) to art”.
Diaz de la Pena’s wizardry and sleight of hand with colours seems to have impressed Caruana Dingli most- Giovanni Bonello
Harsh words indeed, never before uttered by anyone in public about the grand old patriarch who then lorded it virtually unchallenged over the Maltese art scene.
Caruana Dingli had already been away nine months and felt “excited” by the prospect of his return and especially that of seeing his parents and his friend Vincenzo again – these pages signed by Ruy.
Although Caruana Dingli had predicted that to be his last letter from London, he wrote to Father again on April 28, to confirm he was leaving England by the P&O steamer Arabia as a passage on the Medina cost £3 more – departure May 8 and arrival on the 15th. He would use the time available to make secure arrangements for the custody and sale of the Rembrandt.
In the meantime, he would be visiting the Royal Academy exhibition, the prime annual art event of London. Edgar Bundy (1852-1922), he told Father, had been elected Associate of the Royal Academy “rather late for a great artist like him”. Bundy painted like Seymour Lucas, and four of Bundy’s watercolours Dingli had just seen “are simply grand... he is a second Messonier... but he is even more attractive because so modern in style and does not forget himself in overwhelming details... I assure you he is greater than Seymour Lucas.”
Caruana Dingli looked forward to the R.A. exhibition which would open while he was still in London: what would Bundy and Brangwyn have on show? And Edward Stott (1856-1918) too, “an extremely interesting painter”. The whole day before the Maltese artist had spent at the National Gallery, concentrating exclusively on the French painters of the relative-ly recent past: Fantin Latour, Eugene Boudin, Charles-François Daubigny, Corot, Courbet, François Bonvin, Rousseau and Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña.
He gave Father a really long and detailed analysis, a lecture really, on the styles and techniques of some of them, showing acute insight in their spiritual motives and intellectual contents, and making comparisons with other painters. Caruana Dingli throws in some cogent remarks like: artists are themselves free thinkers, and yet they force you to believe what they want you to believe. Diaz de la Peña’s wizardry and sleight of hand with colours seems to have impressed Caruana Dingli most – the ‘deceptions’ he achieves with his palette of greens Whistler equally achieved with his greys – here he shifts his analysis to one painting that left him spellbound – Whistler’s renowned portrait of his mother.
Departing from London caused Dingli no great heartbreak – except insofar as the art museums of the capital were concerned: “I shall indeed be sorry to leave London only because I leave these galleries after me that I won’t be able to visit them while away, that’s my chief regret”. He closes off the letter, rejoicing he would soon be with his dear people and with his friend once more.
On a future occasion I will be editing and commenting on the letters Caruana Dingli wrote to Father from Gozo in 1924-25.
(Concluded)
Acknowledgments:
My thanks to Robert’s grandson Gordon Caruana Dingli, who generously assisted me in my research.