Roberto Matta

Roberto Matta was a surrealist artist that was born in Santiago, Chile in 1911. He grew up in Chile and attended a Jesuit university there. He studied architecture and interior design. After graduating from the program in 1935 he began travelling the world. He first stayed only in Central and Southern America, but he then decided to join the Merchant Marines. This enabled him to travel around the world. Although architecture was his passion and what he was taught in school he also loved to sketch what he saw as he travelled, especially landscapes. From the beginning of his time as an artist he drew and painted exclusively abstract works. While in Europe he finished his term in the Merchant Marines and remained in Paris working as an …show more content…
In 1938 he created his first oil paintings. His first painting known as “Crucifixion” is one his his most well known works which is said to personify Jesus and Mary.. This was the first in a series of many paintings entitled “Psychological Morphologies”. Matta thought of this set of paintings as springing from his subconscious through abstract forms that were able to transcend time and space. Matta also believed these to be "Inscapes," as they depicted the interior landscape his mind coupled with the reality of the world around him. This style is known as surrealist automatism, which is defined as the inspiration for artwork coming from the artist’s mind, especially subconscious, alone. With World War II rapidly approaching, Matta made his way to New York City. Here, in the mid-40’s, he changed the style of his work to reflect the terrifying war around himself. This collection of pieces is known as his “Social Morphologies”, due to its reflection of the political and social perspective of the times, opposed to his more introspective earlier collection. In this series, his works took on a more linear appearance with machine-like creatures as his main subjects. These paintings also feature many abstract opens spaces in the background and