In the 12th article in a series on 20th-century artists who shaped Maltese modernism, Joseph Agius discusses the abstract works of Pawl Carbonaro

Contemporary Maltese art is blessed with practising artists who have built a career fully devoted to their craft.

Pawl Carbonaro at his gallery in Żebbuġ, Gozo.

Pawl Carbonaro (b. 1948) is one such artist who had given up the security offered by working at one of Malta’s leading banks to take up art as a full-time concern.

He flourished into one of Malta’s outstanding contemporary artists besides helping establish modernism at a time in the late 1960s and early 1970s when young blood was needed to bolster the pioneering work of the previous generation of Maltese artists.

Carbonaro’s father was instrumental in the career choice that Pawl made when he was still a very young man.

Hugo Carbonaro (1908-1979) was one of the founders of the art groups of the 1950s which ushered modernism in Malta. This paternal inspiration surely helped in the young artist’s germination; his parents’ frequent visits to Italy introduced the young boy to various historical and archaeological sites as well as the Italian museums with their holds of masterpieces.

His wanderlust was thus nurtured; nowadays he spends a long time away from the Maltese islands. These travels help him experience first-hand the art in museums and galleries.

The lure of the terrain of lands away from these shores, coupled with the topographical and geographical features of the island which has become his adopted home, are the source of inspiration for his landscapes.

His father was his first tutor who provided early discipline and inclination towards a style. Esprit Barthet (1919-1999) was his tutor at the School of Art, which at that time was operating not from its traditional location. However, Pawl didn’t attend classes regularly and gave up on them after just three months.

Barthet was his art teacher at his secondary school too and this important pioneer of Maltese modernism instilled in the young student the love for colour and a particular stylistic approach. Barthet’s rooftops were reinterpreted and developed by the young artist in much the same way as Barthet did when he discovered the work of Paul Klee.

Carbonaro continued his studies in Florence, Italy, between 1974 and 1979. He was joined by Frans Galea (1945-1994), the sculptor whose untimely death deprived Malta of a pure talent. These years were ones filled with internal turmoil for Italy; the so-called ‘anni di piombo’ (years of lead) were a black cloud that conditioned all aspects of daily life in the country.

The Brigate Rosse, an anarchist group with communist leanings, was summarily executing high-profile personalities, most of whom were protagonists in the judicial field. Political corruption was rife in Italy and across most strata of society.

Carbonaro’s student years in Italy were overshadowed by this threatening backdrop. Italy in those years was a melting pot of corruption, terrorism and Mafia warfare.

Feasts of colour, nuance and coherent composition

Pawl lost his father in 1979, coinciding with the last year of his studies in Italy from where he graduated with a diploma in fine art. The news of his father’s ill-health made him leave Italy in a hurry although he barely made it to his father’s funeral.

This loss was a shock for the young artist as, besides losing a parent, he had also lost a life-long mentor. They had exhibited together in 1968 at the National Museum, a collaboration which effectively launched Pawl’s career.

He intended to settle in Malta as he had completed his studies and took up his late father’s studio. He later moved to a studio flat in Balluta which was where I first met him back in 1994. At that time, he was on the verge of moving permanently to Żebbuġ, Gozo, where, to this day, he still has his studio, home and gallery. 

His rank as one of Malta’s foremost landscape artists and probably our country’s major contemporary protagonist in abstraction is undisputed. Bearing in mind that his father and Barthet were his first mentors, his studies and travels exposed him to various artistic influences. His abstract work elicits comparisons with that of Afro Basaldella. The influence of Emilio Vedova, Frans Kline, Pierre Soulages, Helen Frankenthaler, Hans Hartung and Alberto Burri has rubbed off on the Maltese artist along the years.

Carbonaro’s abstracted landscapes document impressions of geographical locations. He adopts a Richard Diebenkorn/Nicolas de Staël perspective in the use of fields of pure colour, a chromatic celebration of joy in the absence of humanity. Like George Fenech, he is a pantheist, an admirer of nature in its various manifestations − from vast open meadows and plains of our northern neighbours, to the sheer majesty of the Dolomite mountains and the emerald beauty of the Irish countryside. 

At an arm’s length from his studio lies the radiant blue Gozitan sea as it crashes down below against the limestone cliffs and the almost pristine countryside of an island that is a host to lore and legend.

Żebbuġ is a picturesque hamlet just up the hill from Marsalforn, an old fishermen’s village now overwhelmed by rampant development and ghastly architectural taste. However, the all-defining belfry features prominently in his numerous townscapes of this seaside haunt of his; this Marsalforn which, like George Fenech’s Mellieħa, has suffered the indecency of incessant pillage in the name of progress. In Pawl’s own words, that part of Marsalforn enthrals him just as the façade of Rouen’s gothic cathedral did for Claude Monet.

Carbonaro’s paintings are feasts of colour, nuance and coherent composition. Along the years he experimented with relief as he introduced pieces of coloured Venetian glass into his landscapes, adorning them with a sculptural quality.

He enjoys an admirable reputation as a graphic artist too. Younger and up-and-coming artists revere him as a teacher, a mentor and a friend besides a role model to be emulated.

Carbonaro defines his passion for creating art as an itch that needs to be scratched, an entrenched habit that cannot be overcome and to which he eagerly succumbs. Working on a canvas is like a chain-smoker going through that fragrant packet of cigarettes.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words eloquently describe Carbonaro’s attitude to his artistic output: “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” 

This series of articles will continue next month.