Artist Mark Rothko?

Question

Discuss the artist and a few of his works. Thanks!

Answer 1

I believe Mr. Rothko's work has been so important because he experimented (an important quality in art) with how one color, and how much of it, effected another color, and maybe two other colors. That was not what other artists were doing at that time, so it was original and it taught other artists more about using color. Additionally, studying his pieces can be very revealing about your own feelings. Try copying one of them at the size of the original, then sit in front of it for an hour or two. You will learn a lot.

Answer 2

I did bypass to a Rothko exhibition of his paintings in London, even however lots of people have been admiring it, the paintings never did something for me, those I observed have been only purple and did no longer look any different to any wall that would desire to of been painted in any coloration. He did dedicate suicide interior the tip, he replaced into extremely a afflicted soul.

Answer 3

Mark Rothko in his West 53rd Street studio, c. 1953, photograph by Henry Elkan, courtesy Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Rudi Blesh Papers

One of the preeminent artists of his generation, Mark Rothko is closely identified with the New York School, a circle of painters that emerged during the 1940s as a new collective voice in American art. During a career that spanned five decades, he created a new and impassioned form of abstract painting. Rothko's work is characterized by rigorous attention to formal elements such as color, shape, balance, depth, composition, and scale; yet, he refused to consider his paintings solely in these terms. He explained:

Mark Rothko, Orange and Tan,1954, National Gallery of Art, Gift of Enid A. Haupt, 1977.47.13
By 1949 Rothko had introduced a compositional format that he would continue to develop throughout his career. Comprised of several vertically aligned rectangular forms set within a colored field, Rothko's "image" lent itself to a remarkable diversity of appearances. In these works, large scale, open structure and thin layers of color combine to convey the impression of a shallow pictorial space. Color, for which Rothko's work is perhaps most celebrated, here attains an unprecedented luminosity. His classic paintings of the 1950s are characterized by expanding dimensions and an increasingly simplified use of form, brilliant hues, and broad, thin washes of color. In his large floating rectangles of color, which seem to engulf the spectator, he explored with a rare mastery of nuance the expressive potential of color contrasts and modulations.



Rothko moving Untitled,1954 (seen inverted), photograph by Henry Elkan

Alternately radiant and dark, Rothko's art is distinguished by a rare degree of sustained concentration on pure pictorial properties such as color, surface, proportion, and scale, accompanied by the conviction that those elements could disclose the presence of a high philosophical truth. Visual elements such as luminosity, darkness, broad space, and the contrast of colors have been linked, by the artist himself as well as other commentators, to profound themes such as tragedy, ecstasy, and the sublime. Rothko, however, generally avoided explaining the content of his work, believing that the abstract image could directly represent the fundamental nature of "human drama."


The Mark Rothko exhibition (May 3 - August 16, 1998) is the first comprehensive American retrospective of the artist's work in twenty years. With 115 works on canvas and paper encompassing all phases of Rothko's career, the exhibition reveals the remarkable depth of Rothko's artistic achievement. This web feature includes a selection of works in the exhibition, as well as a number of paintings and drawings in the Gallery's permanent collection, some of which are not currently on view.




It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.