“If you are only moved by colour relationships, you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions – tragedy, ecstasy and doom”
Russian Modernist Mark Rothko, moved to the United States in 1913 at the age of 10. Studying at Yale, Rothko was interested in mythology, and devoted much of his time researching colour; becoming the leading colour field painters of the Abstract Expressionist School – standing alongside the likes of Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still.
Many of Rothko’s early paintings from the 1930s were expressionist in style, their subjects generally regarding contemporary conventions such as nude, everyday life, street scenes and interiors. However in the 1940s, Rothko like many other contemporaries of his day, such as Ashile Gorky, experimented with automatism (the avoidance of conscious intention when producing art) and Jungian philosophy, based on the work of a Swiss psychiatrist whom focused around introversion, extroversion and individuality; through which he started to develop symbolic linear, eventually giving way to pure abstraction.
In a world still recovering from World War II and an almost global destruction, many artists and audiences couldn't handle the brutality of the realistic images from this time. Consequently Rothko set out to express these ideas of universal significance through complete abstraction and colour. Rothko established what was to become his signature form, expressing overwhelming emotion and physical conflict in terms of colour, texture, and the division of the canvas into stunningly dramatic rectangles of colour.
His 1953, abstract painting titled ‘No. 61 (Rust and Blue)’ depicts no images. Instead, the entire canvas is covered in hues of brilliant blues, slate grays and purple-brown rusts. Rothko uses the layering of these colours to create what he called an “inner light”, an almost transient luminosity that made his works look as though the colour blocks were floating outside the canvas itself.
It can be said that Rothko’s paintings are more about space, rather than about the dramatic colours that saturate them. He wanted his works to be inviting, yet subtly invading of the viewer’s personal space and for them to fully overtake anything else they may have been feeling. Enthralled by the human psyche, Rothko’s conceptual means were that of a spiritual sense. He intended on making his works emotionally stirring, stating that “if people fully understood my paintings, they would be in tears”. These notions of finding and feeling are what give the power to ‘No 61 (Rust and Blue)’, the swelling ambiance created by the contrasting panels of colour emulate an almost uncanny force-field of feeling; an aspect effecting all of society at the time, yet little could fully represent it’s realities and complexities.
Not only were his works a language of feeling and emotion, Rothko used them to address the global consensus of raw trauma resulted from the 30s and 40s. Despite being heavily influenced by philosophy and mythology, Rothko still managed to address social revolutionary ideas throughout his life. Labelled a ‘fierce champion of social revolutionary thought and the right of self-expression’, he supported the artist's total freedom of expression, which he felt was ‘compromised by the market’; and as a result suffered harsh judgement and critique from many established critics, occasionally refusing commissions, sales and exhibitions.
Russian Modernist Mark Rothko, moved to the United States in 1913 at the age of 10. Studying at Yale, Rothko was interested in mythology, and devoted much of his time researching colour; becoming the leading colour field painters of the Abstract Expressionist School – standing alongside the likes of Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still.
Many of Rothko’s early paintings from the 1930s were expressionist in style, their subjects generally regarding contemporary conventions such as nude, everyday life, street scenes and interiors. However in the 1940s, Rothko like many other contemporaries of his day, such as Ashile Gorky, experimented with automatism (the avoidance of conscious intention when producing art) and Jungian philosophy, based on the work of a Swiss psychiatrist whom focused around introversion, extroversion and individuality; through which he started to develop symbolic linear, eventually giving way to pure abstraction.
In a world still recovering from World War II and an almost global destruction, many artists and audiences couldn't handle the brutality of the realistic images from this time. Consequently Rothko set out to express these ideas of universal significance through complete abstraction and colour. Rothko established what was to become his signature form, expressing overwhelming emotion and physical conflict in terms of colour, texture, and the division of the canvas into stunningly dramatic rectangles of colour.
His 1953, abstract painting titled ‘No. 61 (Rust and Blue)’ depicts no images. Instead, the entire canvas is covered in hues of brilliant blues, slate grays and purple-brown rusts. Rothko uses the layering of these colours to create what he called an “inner light”, an almost transient luminosity that made his works look as though the colour blocks were floating outside the canvas itself.
It can be said that Rothko’s paintings are more about space, rather than about the dramatic colours that saturate them. He wanted his works to be inviting, yet subtly invading of the viewer’s personal space and for them to fully overtake anything else they may have been feeling. Enthralled by the human psyche, Rothko’s conceptual means were that of a spiritual sense. He intended on making his works emotionally stirring, stating that “if people fully understood my paintings, they would be in tears”. These notions of finding and feeling are what give the power to ‘No 61 (Rust and Blue)’, the swelling ambiance created by the contrasting panels of colour emulate an almost uncanny force-field of feeling; an aspect effecting all of society at the time, yet little could fully represent it’s realities and complexities.
Not only were his works a language of feeling and emotion, Rothko used them to address the global consensus of raw trauma resulted from the 30s and 40s. Despite being heavily influenced by philosophy and mythology, Rothko still managed to address social revolutionary ideas throughout his life. Labelled a ‘fierce champion of social revolutionary thought and the right of self-expression’, he supported the artist's total freedom of expression, which he felt was ‘compromised by the market’; and as a result suffered harsh judgement and critique from many established critics, occasionally refusing commissions, sales and exhibitions.