The preservation of artistic and cultural patrimony is likely to suffer in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, acknowledges conservator-restorer Fr Charles Vella, while he painstakingly puts the finishing touches to the last of nine prestigious Giuseppe Calì canvases in a Gozo church.

Poverty – not paintings – will be the priority in the foreseeable future, he maintains, adding that art is a luxury and not a necessity in these circumstances – although it is his own lifeline in more ways than one.

Having said that, it is important to keep in good nick the sacred art in the country’s churches, which could be considered Malta’s main galleries, adds the specialist in ‘old master’ paintings.

He admits to struggling to work in the prevailing situation, having “lost the rhythm” in this “surreal” scenario of the COVID-19 lockdown.

“This is not a very interactive moment. This sort of work needs a stimulus, not just from the artist but from the community, which is now under stress. I have had to push myself to fight the apathy that the COVID-19 outbreak has brought along.”

Financed by Bank of Valletta and commissioned by Archpriest Rev. Canon Frankie Bajada from the old Għajnsielem parish church, where the Calì paintings are housed, the project to restore the works kicked off about two years ago, pausing when Fr Vella took on the preservation of the miraculous crucifix of Ta’ Ġieżu Church in Valletta and another painting in St John’s Co-Cathedral.

The works have now been given a new lease of life, following thorough cleaning to remove the crystallised and heavily darkened varnish layers from previous restoration interventions and 100 years of accumulated organic atmospheric grime that left them looking dull and dirty, resulting in a loss of compositional depth and chromatic alteration.

Some of the canvases had tears, fungus infestations and other stains, and infilling and reintegration were necessary to recover their original aesthetic appearance.

Detail of Giuseppe Calì’s St Anthony during restoration.

Among the revelations during the cleaning process was the word Inglesi (English) inscribed on the snake in the painting of the Immaculate Conception, showing up the Italophile Calì was, being born to Neapolitan parents.

“It is obviously intended as an insult, and the artist was known for these taunts,” Fr Vella says about the devil in the detail, the joy of making such discoveries during restoration and the importance of unveiling them.

Calì (1846 – 1930), nicknamed ‘the devil with the brush’, was extremely versatile and prolific; almost every church in Malta boasts a work of his and this is considered a “pride”. But the old parish of Għajnsielem has by the far the most in Gozo.

These also include the Annunciation, Assumption, St Anne, St Andrea, Our Lady of the Rosary, and three unsigned works, St Anthony, St Paul and Sacred Heart of Jesus, which are attributed to the artist

They date back to the period between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, depicting his different techniques that range from the use of thick colour material to light and fluid brushstrokes.

Fr Vella describes their state of conversation prior to restoration as “bad to decent”, adding that all interventions, such as consolidation, cleaning and reintegration, were kept at a minimal level to avoid any reduction of pictorial authenticity. Whenever possible, he explains, samples of stratigraphic layers, testifying to the history of the paintings, were preserved.

Preventive conservation was also undertaken to create favourable conditions to minimise decay and avoid unnecessary future remedial treatments.

With many churches closed due to COVID-19, the art works may not be able to be appreciated in their full glory for a while, but at least, their life span has been prolonged.

And one could always take a leaf out of Paris museums, which have made high-resolution digital copies of 100,000 artworks by the likes of Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso and Cézanne freely available to the public online.