The Neoclassical Revival in Malta

By Hilary Spiteri

Late 18th and early 19th Century academical drawings, paintings and sculptures, produced in Malta and abroad, following the Neoclassical stylistic trends prevailing across Europe. The series of lectures will provide an insight on the history of the rise and decline of the Malta School of Design during the British administration and discusses it in a meaningful art historical context. The prevailing artistic currents (Neoclassicism, Purism and Pre-Raphaelistes) will be discussed and availed to broaden and adjust our perspective of the artistic scenario of early British Malta and to show how, in spite of the decline in official patronage, the University, succeeded in providing Malta with a respectable art academy. This was not an anticlimax but a new beginning and a benchmark development in Maltese Art History.

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