The painting’s title, Composition, brings to mind those abstract paintings in which shapes are arranged on a canvas as if drawn with a ruler or compass. But Roberto Matta’s work is quite different. On large, horizontal canvases, he paints dramatic scenes in quick flurries of brushstrokes. This painting seems to show a machine that spews yellow, blue, and red flames, blowing away the white panel in a cloud of white smoke. Something seems to be controlling the machine, or perhaps trying to resist it, but it is not possible to tell if it is a person or some other device. Various shapes seem to lurk in the surroundings, and the blurry brushstrokes of yellow and pale ink seem to energize the space. Matta, who was also an architect, had a deep knowledge of physics and a strong interest in the "fourth dimension." He broadened the Surrealist view of space, which had tended to be based on perspective and horizons.
(NAKAMURA Naoaki)
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The painting’s title, Composition, brings to mind those abstract paintings in which shapes are arranged on a canvas as if drawn with a ruler or compass. But Roberto Matta’s work is quite different. On large, horizontal canvases, he paints dramatic scenes in quick flurries of brushstrokes. This painting seems to show a machine that spews yellow, blue, and red flames, blowing away the white panel in a cloud of white smoke. Something seems to be controlling the machine, or perhaps trying to resist it, but it is not possible to tell if it is a person or some other device. Various shapes seem to lurk in the surroundings, and the blurry brushstrokes of yellow and pale ink seem to energize the space. Matta, who was also an architect, had a deep knowledge of physics and a strong interest in the "fourth dimension." He broadened the Surrealist view of space, which had tended to be based on perspective and horizons.
(NAKAMURA Naoaki)