CHEV EDWARD CARUANA DINGLI(1876-1950)

 

edward

THERE is so much colour and life in Malta. "You seem to belong to the present and yet one has only to enter St. John's to be surrounded by the ghosts of the ages of chivalry".

Notabile is a city in which one can picture St. Francis. St. Paul preached where your Cathedral stands. Then you have your Stone Age temples, one older than the other. It makes one see Malta, as if it were rising from the waters and making her glorious passage through the ages. It is one of the most wonderful places in the world. I mean it most sincerely, and to think that all we knew of it until this morning was that it is a tiny, tiny island'.

That is what tourists have said so many times without number after a few hours in Malta. They go away, these tourists of the round cruises, with such a craving to know more, such an enthusiasm to come back, to tell all their friends that they Pat on no account miss Malta, and their last word is: ' Oh, if we could show some of all this beauty, it's so wonderful'.

That wish can now be gratified. EDWARD CARUANA DINGLI - A son of Malta, a soldier, a distinguished artist whose name is known wherever art is appreciated, has come forward, and full of that consuming ambition of every true Maltese to assert the dignity of his race, to extol the land of his birth, he has limned a series of paintings that tell the tale of Malta as nothing else can tell it. With all the art of a master, with all the knowledge of a son who treats of his own home, he has given us enough of the life and colour of Malta to reveal to the world the beauties of this little island. -'No side of Malta has been left out and the printers have spared no pains to faithful and artistic reproductions'.

From the Grand Harbour to which Malta owes all her importance throughout the ages, to the peculiar landscapes, the manly types of the inhabitants, the sturdy sons, and the black-eyed maidens in the peculiar headdress; their customs, the local vehicles, the cattle; all the colour Of their everyday life in the gorgeous sunshine and picturesque surroundings.

Of Religion that has always filled the life Of Malta, we have the Neolithic temples of the days when Malta was the Sacred Island of the Ancients; St. Paul's Bay where the Apostle was shipwrecked; the gorgeous cathedral of St.John full of associations with the famous Order of the Knights of Malta; processions with all the solemnity and pomp of ritual and fine vestments; Easter celebrations of a distinctly local character.

The amusements of Malta; a bathing beach, Carnival where the artist brings so near, the spirit, the nerve, I could almost say, the din of the proceedings; the promenades, the life and romance of the highway and the countryside.

 

Lastly, for Malta came from the waters and she will ever be the precious pearl on the bosom of the Middle Sea, the blue, blue sea of Malta. That proud Sea that loves the Island that has always been enthroned as the Queen of the Mediterranean. We have it from every side, for wherever you go in Malta it is never out of sight. With it, we have those glorious little boats that seem to have borrowed something of the air and something of the water and to unite them both and to be their offspring and also their bond. The little ships that are things to remember, that one looks at again and again.



EDWARD CARUANA DINGLI

II-Kavallier Edward Caruana Dingli twieled fil-Belt Valletta fl-10 t'Awissu 1876. Ha l-edukazzjoni tieghu fil-Liceo I-Belt u l-Universita� ta' Malta. Izzewweg lil Charlotte Falzon f1-1900 u kellu zewgt itfal subien.
Huwa studio l-arti (Malta taht il-Professuri Calleja u Cali. Harlem mal-gvern bhala skrivan u kien ufficjal fir-Royal Malta Regiment of Melitia u fir- Royal Malta Artillery, fejn serva ghal hmistax-il sena sa l-1913. Meta rtira mill-Army ha l-arti bhala l-karriera tieghu. Mar Ruma fejn kien milqugh fl-Akkademja Ingliza u aktar tard offrewlu l-post ta' Segretarju Onorarju ta' l-Akkademja.
Rega' lura lein Malta fl-1921 fejn beda x-xoghol tal-pittura u ghamel bosta kwadri ta' ufficjali gholja ta' l-Istat, fosthom gvernaturi, isgfijiet, ammiralli u personalitajiet ohra importanti bhad-Duka to' Connaught, it-Re Gorg V u r-Re Gorg VI.
Fl- 1929 it-Kav. Caruana Dingli kien mahtur Direttur to' I-iskola to' I-Arts tal-Gvern, fejn kien ukoll jghallem il-pittura. Kien bis-sahha tieghu Ii Malta kellha xi artists ohra Maltin bhal Willy Apap, Emvin Cremona u Anton Inglott. Huwa sar Ufficjal ta' l-Ordni Sovran Militari ta' Malta u nghata Medalja tad-deheb u tal-fidda mas-Socjeta� to' I-Arti, Manifattura u Kummerc u rcieva bosta unuri ohra.
Huwa kien l-awtur tal-ktieb "Malta" Ii fih bosta riproduzzjonijiet ta' pittura originali tieghu Ii juru 1-kulur u I-hajja ta' Malta, bhal l-mara Maltija bl-ghonnella u l-guvni tar-rahal bit-terha fost obrajn. Ix-xoghlijiet tieghu nistghu ngawduhom fil-muzew ta' l-Arts I-Belt u f'xi djar privati. II-Kav. Caruana Dingli miet fill-9 ta' Mejju 1950.


Here are some of his paintings

hagarghonellacart

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