MIPP Convention 2012

On the 21st of October 2012, I addressed a lecture to a good number of professional photographers who attended the MIPP Convention 2012. The lecture was entitled Art and Photography: Art and its co-relation with photography 1836-1970. 

An abstract of the lecture follows:

In the second half of the 19th century, artists were introduced to a new medium which many believed was to become their main competitor. Photography affected in a adverse manner artists who at the time were earning a living out of producing pictorial portraits and fine art scenery. Contrarily, avant-garde 19th century artists (Manet, Eakins and Monet) and successively major exponents of Modern Art (Picasso, Duchamp and Warhol) considered photography as a new medium of expression which helped them to create and enhance their artistic spirit in an innovative way. Was photography in competition with the artistic sector or else it was moving in a parallel direction? In what ways did artists utilise such medium and to what extent it helped them discover new artistic ways of expression?

The lecture resulted to be a fruitful experience in which several issues were discussed on Art and photography. It was stressed the importance of photography as being a form of art. In fact the lecture dealt with the element of having artists making use of photography for didactic purposes (Thomas Eakins) and also utilizing such an art form to extend their vision and artistic production (Manet and Picasso). In return, Photography, as a branch of learning, was later to benefit and to escalate the realm of fine art.

Finally, I would like to thank the Malta Institute of Professional Photography for once again granting me the opportunity to lecture and present to the audience an interesting subject, which I hope it generate artistic conscience and sparked inspiration in each and everyone who was present.

Teachers work 53 hours per week on average

Survey: Teachers work 53 hours per week on average

By Valerie Strauss for Washington Post

This was written by Francie Alexander, chief academic officer for Scholastic, Inc. She has has taught at all levels, was a district reading consultant for Pre-K through high school, and has authored numerous professional articles for educators and dozens of books for children.

Teaching is a much talked about yet often misunderstood profession. Educators frequently hear well-meaning comments from parents and friends like “It must be so sweet to spend your days with children” or “How wonderful to be done for the day by three o’clock.” Are they serious?

Teaching is joyous, but it is also hard work! It is fast-paced, multi-faceted, and complex. I should know. I spent many years as a teacher and it is the hardest and most satisfying work I’ve ever done.

A new report from Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on the Teaching Profession, finally quantifies just how hard teachers work: 10 hours and 40 minutes a day on average. That’s a 53-hour work week!

These numbers are indicative of teachers’ dedication to the profession and their willingness to go above and beyond to meet students’ needs. It never was, and certainly isn’t now, a bell-to-bell job.

The 7.5 hours in the classroom are just the starting point. On average, teachers are at school an additional 90 minutes beyond the school day for mentoring, providing after-school help for students, attending staff meetings and collaborating with peers. Teachers then spend another 95 minutes at home grading, preparing classroom activities, and doing other job-related tasks. The workday is even longer for teachers who advise extracurricular clubs and coach sports —11 hours and 20 minutes, on average. As one Kentucky teacher surveyed put it, “Our work is never done. We take grading home, stay late, answer phone calls constantly, and lay awake thinking about how to change things to meet student needs.”

The 10,000 teachers surveyed in Primary Sources 2012 convey a very real portrait of the challenges and joys of the teaching profession. They share their thoughtful, nuanced views on both their daily practice and critical issues at the heart of education reform. Here are some more key findings:

* Teachers are seeing the effects of joblessness and a difficult economy on their students’ families and in the classroom. Fifty six percent of teachers who have been teaching in the same school for five years or more are seeing more students living in poverty, and 49% are seeing more students coming to school hungry.

* Teachers welcome and are even eager for more frequent evaluation of their practice. Again and again, teachers spoke of the need for feedback on their practice in order to become the best teachers they can be. Plus, they are open to hearing from a variety of sources including principals, peers and parents - and students!

* Challenges facing students are significant and growing. 46 percent of veteran teachers say they are seeing fewer students prepared for challenging work than when they began teaching in their current schools. The percentage of children who struggle with reading and math is increasing at all socio-economic levels.

* The majority of teachers are satisfied in their jobs: Eighty nine percent of teachers are either very satisfied or satisfied in their jobs. They also share their reasons for satisfaction and for frustration, and identified the kinds of resources teachers need to be as successful as they can be.

Hilary Spiteri on Malta l-Lejla - NET tv re.: Academic Artistic Training in early British Malta

Recently, I was invited for an interview regarding my latest publication during the popular afternoon TV show Malta l-Lejla.

Stephanie Spiteri (conductor) hosts this daily early evening magazine show which is balanced between being informative and educational, inquisitive and fun. Daily interviews with people making the news or people less in the limelight, people from our past, people with something interesting to say. 

I was invited for this fourth edition which tackles various aspects of Maltese life and touch on topics which will surely allow our viewers to relax and watch, watch and learn, learn and do! The show is aired daily from Monday to Friday between 17:00-18:45 on NET TV.

Artists and Optics Lecture by Hilary Spiteri

In January 2012 I had the opportunity to address the Malta Institute of Professional Photography members during a lecture entitled 'Artists and Optics -  photography techniques employed by artists 300 years before the advent of photography'.   

The lecture turned out to be a very positive one in which the very first photography techniques employed by artists 300 years before the Deguerrian practices of photography were discussed.

The lecture was held at Corinthia Hotel, St Georges Bay, St Julians Malta on the 4th of January 2012 at 20:00.

Academic Artistic Training in early British Malta - The Sunday Times review by Kenneth Zammit Tabona

With the decision taken by the government to move the national art collection back to Auberge d’italie from what is still popularly known as Admiralty House in South Street comes the publication of Hilary Spiteri’s Academic Artistic Training in Early British Malta.

This is an erudite tome that required a humongous amount of research to complete and which casts a revelatory light on a period that was initially obscured in historical turmoil and later absorbed in the great British ideal as laid down by the visionary Prince Consort.

What comes out loud and clear is what a debt of gratitude we owe to Canon (later Bishop) Francesco Saverio Caruana who was, besides Malta’s premier patriot, hailed as Malta’s Maecenas and who founded and directed the School of Design within the ambit of Malta’s re- established university in 1803 after the disagreeable Napoleonic interlude, which flourished till Caruana’s installation as Bishop of Malta in 1822.

Born in 1759 into a wealthy Żebbuġ family with strong aristocratic connections, Francesco Saverio was a great patron of the arts and was the prime political mastermind during the turbulent period which saw the final days and expulsion of the Order of Malta, the Napoleonic aberration and the insurrection of the Maltese against it. He was also the chief negotiator who facilitated the transition of Malta from a semimonastic sovereign principality to becoming a jewel in the British King’s crown.

Much has been written about Mgr Caruana, who still remains a controversial figure in Maltese history depending which end of the political lens one observes him from.

To have received an accolade from the notoriously difficult and abrasive Governor Thomas Maitland, is enough to show that this statesman brought peace to Malta at a time when Europe was in conflagration.

His elevation to Bishop of Malta in 1822 marked the beginnings of the accords between Church and State which, believe it or not, are extant even today. His biography was written by his great nephew the Count of Beberrua, Vincenzo Caruana Gatto and is a primary source of reference in Spiteri’s treatise.

This tome proves two diametrically unrelated theories: one that art is interderivative and that nothing can exist in isolation. Trying to prove otherwise reminds me of those stories of babies raised by wolves ( not Romulus and Remus, of course) who in their post- pubescence had to learn the rudiments of being and acting like a human being.

Therefore, the history and development of art is like case law; dependent on previous experience whatever anyone says.

The other theory is that art and politics are and will always be inextricably linked. In Malta this is amply proved by the establishment of that august institution which still exists today: the Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, which though it may sound anachronistic today, represented at its foundation in 1852 the latest in modern academia in accordance with the theories devised by Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha, husband of Queen Victoria and universally known as the Prince Consort.

It is indeed intriguing to note that the society was set up a year after the great exhibition in London which was by all accounts epochmaking at many levels and which established the British Empire as the primus inter pares of European states.

The remote outpost of Malta was indeed blessed to have been included in the prince’s intellectually sound plans. It is interesting to note that this was before the opening of the Suez Canal – an event that transformed the economic history of Malta forever, turning a hitherto fossilised and still ecclesiastical ruling class into a dynamic mix with the newly established plutocratic tycoons who established great fortunes in their dealings across the Mediterranean form Gibraltar to Alexandria.

Visually the book’s impact is minimal and has no pretensions to being what can be termed a coffee table type feast of design and colour. What it does have is a wealth of drawings mistily by Raffaele Caruana that are found in the five portfolios consisting of 440 works found in the reserve collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts.

I was also intrigued that the plaster casts we have all gazed and studied at the School of Art, which was set up in 1926, has the same plaster casts that were purchased by Francesco Saverio Caruana for his School of Design; this is providential, as towards the middle of the 19th century it became increasingly difficult to use live models as Roman Catholic bigotry and Victorian prurience joined forces to eventually make this impossible.

Although the casts replicate great works of art like the Apollo of the Belvedere and a number of Parthenon friezes, to mention but a few, there is absolutely no comparison – and believe me I know first- hand – to the real thing.

No matter how artfully lights are placed a plaster cast remains what it is and can never ever remotely replace the real thing. Yet for decades upon decades Maltese artists had to make do.

As Sandro Debono, senior curator of the National Museum of Fine Arts, points out in his foreword, Spiteri is the latest in the growing number of researchers whose interest in the National Collection has enriched our knowledge of the history of art in Malta.

Again, with the reestablishment of the History of Art Department at the University as late as 1988 by Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, the former rector, and Mario Buhagiar who still today is the head of the department, the study of our creative history has been under scrutiny for the past 23 years.

I well remember two great books which only a couple of decades ago set the trend and changed local bibliography forever; one was the same Buhagiar’s The Iconography of the Maltese Islands and the other was Nicholas de Piro’s The International Dictionary of Artists who Painted Malta.

These books laid the foundation stone for the vibrant art scene that thrives in Malta today; one which I hope will continue to flourish and place Malta on the international artistic map as a unique island with a unique history, if and when the powers that be understand the need to have a museum of Modern and Contemporary Art besides the extant Fine Arts one.

Only then will we be able to fully appreciate the artistic activity of this small but spunky island population, which despite all odds tries its best on many counts to disprove Aesop’s fable of the frog and the cow, and more often than not manages to do so.

ARTISTS AND OPTICS - Lecture by Hilary Spiteri

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ARTISTS AND OPTICS  

photography techniques employed by artists 300 years before the advent of photography

Hilary Spiteri will be holding a lecture entitled Artists and Optics where he will be discussing the very first photography techniques employed by artists 300 years before the Deguerrian practices of photography.

The lecture will be held at Corinthia Hotel, St Georges Bay, St Julians Malta on the 4th of January 2012 at 20:00.

The lecture is open to the general public.

Leonardo: A painter at the Court of Milan - A worth visiting exhibition!

Artistically speaking, December 2011 presented me a great opportunity of visiting the British capital, London, and paying a visit at the world renowned current exhibition: Leonardo: A painter at the Court of Milan.  Mr Patrick Sammut, my fellow colleague, and five students accompanied me throughout this late 15th century Leonardian tour.

Some information about the exhibition

Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan’ is the most complete display of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings ever held. This unprecedented exhibition – the first of its kind anywhere in the world – brings together sensational international loans never before seen in the UK.

Leonardo the artist

While numerous exhibitions have looked at Leonardo da Vinci as an inventor, scientist or draughtsman, this is the first to be dedicated to his aims and techniques as a painter. Inspired by the recently restored National Gallery painting, The Virgin of the Rocks, this exhibition focuses on Leonardo as an artist. In particular it concentrates on the work he produced as court painter to Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan in the late 1480s and 1490s.

As a painter, Leonardo aimed to convince viewers of the reality of what they were seeing while still aspiring to create ideals of beauty – particularly in his exquisite portraits – and, in his religious works, to convey a sense of awe-inspiring mystery.

Works on display

Featuring the finest paintings and drawings by Leonardo and his followers, the exhibition examines Leonardo’s pursuit for perfection in his representation of the human form.  Works on display include ‘La Belle Ferronière’ (Musée du Louvre, Paris), the ‘Madonna Litta’ (Hermitage, Saint Petersburg) and ‘Saint Jerome’ (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome).

The two versions of Leonardo’s ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ – belonging to the National Gallery and the Louvre – were shown together for the first time.

The final part of the exhibition features a near-contemporary, full-scale copy of Leonardo’s famous ‘Last Supper’, on loan from the Royal Academy. Seen alongside all the surviving preparatory drawings made by Leonardo for the 'Last Supper', visitors will discover how such a large-scale painting was designed and executed.