To Cover the Earth with a New Dew

In this hallucinatory landscape, the sun rises over a scene of swarming white insects and bizarre green-and-pink orbs. Roberto Matta moved to Paris in 1935 and became a prominent figure in the Surrealist movement. This later work showcases his continued interest in Surrealism’s automatic drawing and painting, where the hand moves freely, uninhibited by conscious thought. Matta described his paintings as “the subconscious in its burning, liquid state; a conscious daytime substitution of the phenomena of dreams.”