Morató Aragonés in his studio in Congost street (Barcelona) 90’s.
Morató Aragonés was born in Reus (Tarragona) in 1923. Due to familiar circumstances, he lived in Cornudella from 1928 to 1941. It was there where his vocation for the Arts was awakened while he kept the company of painters like Ignasi Mallol, Bosch Roger, Gonzalo Lindín or Ivo Pascual who, in 1940, encouraged him to study the Fine Arts. In 1941, after he was conceded the award Medalla Fortuny, he moved to Barcelona to study Fine Arts. In this city he was inspired by Bonaventura Puig i Perucho, inheritor of the Corotian landscape painting. Already initiated in Impressionism, the frequent journeys to Paris, from 1950 onwards, were to define a language of synthesis between the naturalist tradition of landscape, the constructivist rationalization, inherited from Cezanne, and even the abstraction, becoming evident in the trace as well as in colour and the treatment of material. The discovery of the flat painting and the works of Clavé, Bouffet or Chagall accentuated in him the taste for the Expressionist aesthetics of marked profiles and preferences for cold shades, which made him to be known for his “rich greyish palette”.
Santes Creus, by Morató Aragonés.
This search for the balance between the real and the abstract pushed him to work apart from groups or movements and to maintain the bond with the form and the drawing, although he had times in which the inflexibility of the palette knife drew him nearer to the material nature of Informal Art, as he recognized on many occasions. Since a more geometrical performance of his work in the 60ies, he passed on progressively to a greater smoothness of forms when taking up again the brush and warm shades, although he maintained his force and audacity of the trace. Morató Aragonés has always maintained the bonds to his homeland, painting the landscapes of Cornudella and Reus, which he interchanged with sights of places he visited during the periods he travelled more (Morocco, France, Holland, Switzerland, England, Italy…)
Volendam, by Morató Aragonés.
The French landscape with an architecture favouring geometrical traces, and the austere Castilian landscape causing a chromatic and compositional play of difficult solution became the two opposing aspects of a realty which he knew to combine with skill. Being fundamentally a landscape painter and an excellent draughtsman, he dedicated himself also to the representation of figures and the composition of coffee house scenes, which represent a large part of his works. We must not forget either the themes of seascapes nor still lives in intermediate periods.
Figura 2, by Morató Aragonés.
Montsant, by Morató Aragonés.
The extensive list of awards is a reflex of the passionate dedication to painting during more than 65 years of his life, but he was also a great lover of social gatherings which took place at emblematic places in the Catalan capital: Kansas, La Punyalada, Samoa, La Cova del Drac and Escarlata, where his name forms part in between the most unconditional members. In 1996, he was awarded with the Medalla d’Or de la Ciutat de Reus (the Gold Medal of the City of Reus), and in 1999 he was named a favourite son of Cornudella de Montsant.
Cingles de Siurana (Siurana cliffs), by Morató Aragonés.
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