In the eighth article in a series on 20th-century artists who shaped Maltese modernism, Joseph Agius discusses the introspective works of Carmelo Mangion.

Carmelo Mangion (1905-1997) is one of the two fathers of modern art in Malta, the other being his contemporary, the sculptor Josef Kalleya (1898-1998). These two seminal artists paved the way for modernism in Malta. Their art and concepts appeared outrageous in an era governed by the omnipresent Catholic Church and a high society which saw in Edward Caruana Dingli its enfant prodige and the obvious descendant of Giuseppe Calì.

Mangion was lucky to have a father who believed in him from early on and who realised that his young son was gifted with a precocious talent.  He convinced Caruana Dingli to take his son on as a student for private tuition as there was no Malta School of Art in the early years of the 20th century. These five years introduced the young artist to traditional technical discipline and perspective which were dear to Caruana Dingli.

Mangion left Malta in 1926 for Rome to continue his studies, which were financed once again by his father. He enrolled at the British Academy of Art directed by the famous Maltese sculptor Antonio Sciortino. He befriended Vincent Apap during this Italian interlude, as the sculptor was also a student at Sciortino’s school.

Mangion was exposed to the landscape oeuvre of important Italian artists like former futurist Carlo Carrà. Carrà’s original futurist aesthetic changed into a more introspective and philosophical one when he joined the Arte Metafisca group of Giorgio de Chirico and Alberto Savinio, de Chirico’s younger brother. Their disconcerting and enigmatic urban landscapes must have been eye-opening for the young Maltese artist. The cityscapes of Mario Sironi with their penchant for suburban and urban gloom and apparent post-apocalyptic deserted environments could also have intrigued Mangion.

Towards Town

In 1928, he left Rome for Paris, which in those years was a melting pot of genius in all fields. Picasso and Matisse regularly challenged each other to breakthroughs while surrealism was in its heydays. Mangion fell in love with Paris and its many lures. He discovered impressionism and, more importantly, Paul Cézanne, Georges Rouault and Maurice de Vlaminck, who broadened his views as regards the landscape and religious genres. Cézanne’s bathers and the pyramidal composition were re-explored and reinterpreted many times by Mangion along the years.

New York was next on his itinerary; two of his brothers had been living there for quite some time. He enrolled at the Grand Central School of Art and mastered the techniques of etching and the print medium. Mangion introduced this discipline at the School of Art in Malta when he returned in 1934 after his three years in the Big Apple. His teaching career, which spanned decades, involved him totally and his numerous students, who themselves became pioneers of Maltese modernism, were enthralled by his enthusiasm and the sincere devotion to his teaching. Yet he managed to find time to dedicate to himself and his landscape art flourished.

His interlude in New York exposed him to life on the fast lane and the city’s manifestation of this which were featured in his urban landscapes from this period. Electricity and telephone poles sometimes replaced trees in Mangion’s landscapes. These elements of progress and the change in the pristine Maltese countryside are ruefully observed by the artist, imparting that sense of loss of Edward Hopper’s lonely landscapes of American suburbia.

The elementary phallic shape and raw power of the two chimneys of the power station ejaculating smoke are depicted in a tight perspective in a series of thematic works devoted to the changing Maltese way of life. Mangion keeps the chimneys at a safe distance amid the Maltese vernacular architecture in a manner reminiscent of American precisionist Charles Demuth.

Distant Church

Mangion’s landscapes are turbulent and tortured as the brute force of nature contorts existentially and painfully

Mangion’s seminal importance as a giant of 20th-century Maltese landscape art is amply demonstrated by his impressive oeuvre in the genre. Unlike the case of George Fenech, where the landscapes are balmy and peaceful, most of Mangion’s landscapes are turbulent and tortured as the brute force of nature contorts existentially and painfully as in the landscapes of Chaim Soutine.

Carmelo Mangion

Storms are brewing and de Vlaminck is evoked in the wintry landscapes where the sky is leaden and dark. One recalls Samuel Beckett’s words “I know what darkness is, it accumulates, then suddenly bursts and drowns everything.” Through these expressionist landscapes, Mangion masterfully transcribes an anthropocentric existential pain into a ‘scream passing through nature’.

Mangion’s religious work, expressionist and Fauvist, eloquently sets the mood for the narration of biblical episodes. In some cases, the dark lines that delineate the contours evoke Rouault. In others, one is reminded of Emil Nolde’s religious paintings where the narrative is enhanced by an explosion of colour that sets up a pregnant mood of expectation. The Maltese artist, just like Nolde, eloquently demonstrates that sobriety and spirituality do not need to be monochromatic.

Msida Creek

Jesus Christ is central to a large percentage of Mangion’s paintings in this genre; a theme which is symbolically transposed to some of his still-lifes as a central stylised Georges Braque-like fish.

The symbol of the fish in paleo-Christianity and ancient Hellenistic Christianity represents Jesus Christ via the acronym Ichtus which translates as ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’. Icthus is Greek for fish, hence the semiotic Christian relevance of the stylised fish imagery.

Mangion conveys a latent sense of spirituality via this series of icthus-centric works which suggest the Last Supper episode in the Bible when Christ transubstantiated His body into the bread He broke. Mangion merges the mundane, like a table set for dinner, into a symbolically loaded commemoration of one of the sacraments. The perspective he uses invites us to partake in the Communion.

Golgotha Scene

This spiritual and deep introspection can also be identified in a series of paintings depicting the internal cavernous space of Valletta’s St John’s Co-Cathedral. The absence of worshippers and tourists augments the volumes as all the attention is committed to the sublime architecture. Mangion orchestrates a František Kupka orphic semi-abstraction and obvious break from faithful representation in some examples of this series. In others, architectural features are more defined as they behave like musical elements that complement the composition. One can be fleetingly reminded of John Piper’s architectural renditions of the war-inflicted ruins of the Coventry Cathedral.

The series on Floriana’s Methodist Church façade is somewhat complementary to his interiors of St John’s and further demonstrates the artist’s fascination with places of worship.

However, one must not discount the neo-Gothic non-vernacular architectural dimension that could explain Mangion’s attraction to this building, sharing Claude Monet’s enchantment for the gothic Rouen Cathedral.

Mangion preferred not to join any of the Maltese artist groups of the 1950s as he was a loner at heart and preferred his own company while working. His participation in the 1958 Venice Biennale together with six other Maltese artists was a cornerstone of his career. Just four solo exhibitions, two of which very late in his career, are effective proof of his reluctance to attract attention to himself and to his work. 

Mangion’s standing as one of the godheads of Maltese modernism is undisputed. An impressive repertoire of paintings confirms him as one of Malta’s foremost landscape artists of the 20th century, besides being a master in all genres. He was a very cultured man, loving classical music which usually accompanied his creating.

A mental image of him lingers on despite that 24 years have passed since I had the opportunity to visit him at his house – the old, frail artist sipping on a goblet of amber-hued cognac, the smouldering Gitanes dangling between his lips, the dreamy impressionism of Debussy playing on his record player, the love of anything French so self-evident and the hushed introspection that emanated from his very person.

An introspection that was silent, sacred and the very essence of his art.