Artistic Intuition and Historical Events: Rebeca Matte and the War Memorial for the Peace Palace in The Hague, 1913-1914

Summary

Since the “romantic modernity” the nineteenth century painters and sculptors have increased their dramatic sense of life and history according, not only with the epochal circumstances, but also with a process of self-conciusness, that intensified their sensibility.
This article studies this problem through the example of the chilean sculpture, Rebeca Matte Bello (1875-1929) and her Monument “The War” in The Hague International Court, placed there in the year 1914, immediately before the beginning of the First WorldWar.
The genesis of this monument in the personal and diplomatic Chilean correspondence, shows that, nevertheless the proliferation of the pacifist mouvements led by The International Court, Rebeca Matte, according to his ouwn artistic intuition, anticipates, not the peace, but suffering, destruction and death.