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Treasure To Meet You | Bernadine Scicluna - MUŻA EN | Heritage Malta | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Treasure To Meet You | Bernadine Scicluna - MUŻA EN
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[Music]
thank you
hello I'm Benedict Luna and I'm one of
the principal curators at Musa Musa is
malta's National community art museum
I'm going to be talking to you about one
of my favorite paintings
to presents the portrait of the
Portuguese Grand Master Emmanuel Pinto
de Fonseca
it was painted by the French artist
Antoine fabre
who had come to Malta in 1744
and he stayed here for the rest of his
life for the exception of nine years in
Constantinople why is this one of my
favorite paintings
what to do with the fact that I'm very
very fascinated by portraiture and the
reason for my Fascination for this
particular subject has got to do with
the fact that ultimately human beings
are interested in other human beings
we're all curious about each other
aren't we so
so
let's see how we're going to read this
painting what is the artist through this portrait
portrait
and telling us
so let's look at the face
is it
turned towards the side no it's frontal
what about the eyes are they looking
directly at us indeed they are and this
is because Pinto wants to grab our
attention wants to hold our attention so
he's saying something about himself so
he's wearing a typical 18th century wig
that would have been worn by people like
himself by the nobility by the
well-to-do of society at the time
he wears the typical ceremonial dress of
the order
which was made of black silk and you can
see the eight-pointed cross
then he has this lovely Jabo
which is made of this very very
intricate lace work and by the way this
is a painting this is a tribute to
Antoine Fabrez technical competence we also
also
notice that this ceremonial dress has
this ermine fur
now ermine fur was typically exclusive
to royalty so
so
Pinto the Grand Master
so he adopted this pose this stance of
certain arrogance
he's very haughty he is conveying Authority
Authority
and because he is the most powerful
person or he was the most powerful
person at the time in 18th century Malta
is placed exactly in the center of the composition
composition
but there are other things that we
should take note of notice
notice
this particular gesture he's got his arm open
open
and it ends with an open hand
what is it it is a gesture of welcome he
is inviting us into his world he's
inviting us into this painting
and if we had to
draw an imaginary line
along the arm we notice that it actually
continues through the neck and the edge
of this curtain
it's a heavy
and very rich velvet curtain
when we think of a curtain
where does it take us well at least to
me it takes me to the theater
when the curtain is drawn open the
spectacle the show is about to start and
something else that we should take note of
where is his other arm
and his hand
how interesting
he places his hand in a very comfortable
way almost as though his you know
caressing his his cat or his dog
but there's no animal here
what we have is this crown
it's a closed Crown not an open crown
now a few minutes ago I mentioned the
airline fur
there's a connection here our mind fair
reminds us of royalty reminds us of
kings and queens
same thing with the crown it and in this
case a closed crown
by Pinto having his hand placed on the
closed Crown he is conveying a message
he's saying
well you know
I am a grand master
but I am also The Sovereign Prince of
this little island this principality
called Malta this is very very different
from the spirit of submission with which
Malta was granted to the order back in 1529
1529
when we are in the 18th century here
and this was the time when the Order of
Saint John was shedding its religious
character and becoming more and more secular
secular
the order at this time
wanted to resemble the Royal courts of Europe
Europe
now let's face it
this Portuguese Grand Master was of
aristocratic birth like a lot of
previous Grand Masters and the ones that
followed him
even the knights they they came from the
the great families of Europe so
aristocratic blood did run through their veins
veins
so in a sense perhaps Pinto was saying
that you know why right
he had the authority to claim a certain sovereignty
and one thing to also point out is
that fabre
was following the style the fashion of
the time when it came to painting
portraits so this is what we refer to as
the Grand Manor style and the influence
of this style comes from
and Louis XIV wanted to make himself
appear larger than life almost Divine
this Grand Banner Style
started to be used by the various courts
various aristocracies throughout all of Europe
Europe
and thanks to fabre it reached our
Island as well this painting is still
meaningful to us
not only because of its subjects because
we're in we're still interested in
anything that's got to do with the Order
of Saint John not only because we're
interested in pinto not only because
we're fascinated by what is being
represented and how all these silent
messages still
reach us today
but it's also got to do with the fact that
that
um portraiture I mean in a way is a
reflection of ourselves as I said at the
beginning human beings are interested in
other human beings so the minute we see
a portrait of a human being
we're interested in seeing how he has
been how he is being Remembered in this case
case
and and we ask ourselves
if we had to have a portrait of
ourselves painted or sculpted
what would we wear how would we stand
how would we sit would we wear awake
would we have
something accompany us would we have a
person join us in our portrait
so it's all about memory it's about
posterity it's wanting to live beyond
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