Apap, Cremona and the Iconography of St Paul

Dr Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, artist-painter and lecturer at the University of Malta, Department of History of Art discusses Willie Apap’s and Emvin Cremona’s works of art, works which particularly concern the iconography of St Paul.
The author not only studies and discusses the artistic parameters defining both Maltese painters but also puts these particular works in their socio-political context. Schembri Bonaci compares the role such paintings played in the development of modern Maltese art and he also debates their correlation with other epoch-making works which shaped European and international art.
Another important element of this work is the critical-analytical approach which the author is trying to introduce and develop in the Maltese art scene. Basing himself on a Panofsky-Baxandall approach Schembri Bonaci surgically analyses the dialectical relationship existing between the Apap and Cremona’s works, confronting their particular art philosophy, technique and socio-political allegiences.