Considered one of the most important figures in the "Color Field Painting" style and modern art in general, Mark Rothko has often been hailed as one of the great masters of color. However, an analysis of his artistic career and the artist's own words reveal that in reality, an exploration of color, or an interest in aesthetics in general, was not central to his artistic vision.
Although Rothko's work evolved dramatically visually and chromatically throughout his career, a common thread unifies all of his works: a philosophical concern with how to communicate the tragedy of the human condition through art. Despite his wonderful use of color, especially in his mature work, it is this almost spiritual quest to provoke an experience of the transcendental that most concerned Rothko when creating his work.
Hans Namuth, Mark Rothko, 1964. © Hans Namuth Ltd. Photo courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian Institute
The early period of Rothko's oeuvre is notable for his interest in everyday scenes from New York City life. In works such as Street Scene (c. 1937), Untitled (Female Nude Standing by a Fireplace) (c. 1937), and Subway Scene (1938), Rothko depicts street scenes or moments from his personal life. They often evoke a sense of distress; of claustrophobia created by the desolation of the scattered backgrounds or the tension between the almost sculptural forms that play with unreal proportions; or of loneliness, even when several figures are present. The color palette during this period is mostly muted, with a strong presence of grays, beiges, browns, and blacks. In The Romantics Were Prompted , Rothko’s 1947 artistic manifesto, he reflects that the works that move him most are “the pictures of the single human figure—alone in a moment of utter immobility” , something he apparently sought to replicate in his own early works (Breslin, 1993, p. 63). This interest in exploring such loneliness and desolation through everyday portraits reveals that Rothko was preoccupied with the dark side of human experience from early on in his artistic life.
1. Mark Rothko, Street Scene, c. 1937. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy of WikiArt
2. Mark Rothko, Heads, 1941_1942. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko_Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy of Christie's
In visual and substantive terms, Rothko's second period works mark a drastic departure from his first period. They are characterized by an obsession with the "spirit of myth" and stem from a conscious and intentional effort to create a universal language through mythological symbols. Along with Barnett Newman and Adolf Gottlieb, Rothko moved away from depictions of everyday scenes and immersed himself in symbolism, particularly Greco-Roman. In his choice of mythological symbols and scenes, Rothko often opted for the most tragic or dramatic stories: the failed sacrifice of Isaac at the hands of his father, Abraham (Sacrifice, 1946), the ill-omened and violent scenes of the Oresteia (The Omen of the Eagle, 1942; The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, 1942), and Nietzsche's tragic vision of the god Dionysus (Heads, 1941–1942). During this period, which lasted almost a decade, Rothko's color palette remained relatively subdued; occasional hints of yellow, orange, green, or blue appeared, but mostly the gray and brown remained the same. In his unpublished notes for a joint 1943 letter to the New York Times written by Rothko, Gottlieb, and Newman, Rothko revealed that a philosophical, rather than an aesthetic, outlook guided his work during this period. Rothko writes, “A picture is not its color, its form, or its anecdote, but an intent entity idea whose implications transcend any of these parts” (Breslin, 1993, p. 201). Here again, form and color are less important tools in communicating the artist’s vision of our existence.
Mark Rothko, Sacrifice, 1946. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976
In the late 1940s, Rothko gradually moved away from the mythological style, gradually simplifying his work into floating forms. Initially vertical, he later opted for what would become his best-known format: groups of two or three horizontal rectangular shapes floating on a field of color. Although his mature works may seem to mark an abrupt break from his earlier periods, Mark Rothko's desire to communicate the tragic realities of the human experience endures.
Yet it is here, with his most abstract works, that he finally finds the ideal language for his purpose. In this series of paintings, color plays a role like never before in his work. The palette includes a much broader range of colors, generally of vibrant and intense tones, although in the later years of his life he increasingly opted for whites, blacks, and dark grays. However, there is no evidence that Rothko arrived at his color combinations through theoretical study or an analysis of which ones "would look best" together. On the contrary, during this period Rothko again claims to be uninterested in the relationships of color or form.
Mark Rothko, No. 10, 1957. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy The Menil Collection
In a conversation with the writer Selden Rodman in the late 1940s, where Rodman calls him “A master of color harmonies and relationships on a monumental scale,” Rothko retorts, “I'm not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else.” The painter reiterates that he is only interested in “…expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on” (Breslin, 1993, p. 309). On another occasion, in the late 1950s, in a talk with students at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, transcribed by the writer and art critic Dore Ashton, Rothko delves a little deeper into his process, offering a tongue-in-cheek checklist of how to make a work of art. The seven-point checklist does not at any point refer to specific techniques, formalism, or color combinations. On the contrary, it details the philosophical concerns the artist must address in his work—death and a sense of our mortality, sensuality, tension, irony, play, the ephemeral and serendipitous, and finally, hope. These, according to Rothko, are the “ingredients” or “the formula” of a work of art, and an elegant sense of color is not among them (Breslin, 1993, p. 390).
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1967. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy The Menil Collection
Whether his intention was or not, it is clear that one of the most striking and powerful characteristics of Rothko's mature works is his use of color. The tension between colors, and between the floating forms that, when seen in person, appear to move, grow, and consume the viewer , is one of the factors that induces a spiritual and transcendental experience in all of us who contemplate his works. Although one can clearly speak of Rothko as a master of color, if the analysis ends there, it falls short. As Rothko himself said, “I may have used colors and shapes in the way that painters before have not used them, but this was not my purpose… The form follows the necessity of what we have to say. When you have a new view of the world, you will have to find new ways to say it” (Breslin, 1993, p. 395). Communicating this “new vision of the world” and of the human condition, which clearly figures in his work throughout his career, was the artist's primary concern and is the most interesting legacy of his work. Rothko's mature style, with its planes of color, is so striking not because of its aesthetic combinations or its particularly vivid or beautiful colors, but because it provokes an almost religious experience and conveys the "human drama" in a particularly transcendental way.
