Marcus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz September 25, 1903 – February 25,
1970)
I
recently saw an exhibit on Mark Rothko at the Arkansas Art Center the other
day. One of the many privileges of volunteering at a local art center for which,
I really enjoy. I have been volunteering at the AAC since 2008 to keep in the
loop of local artists and for the great exhibits at the museum and also, hoping
to work in a Museum someday.
There
are a lot of paintings to talk about by Rothko, but I am only going to mention
the ones I saw on my visit to the Museum this past week at AAC. First, a little
history about the artist background, Mark Rothko was born in a city in Russia
named Latvia. He was a Latvia Jewish descent. His family immigrated to the
United States of America in 1913 through Ellis Island. His name changed when he
got older due to him being afraid that the USA would send him back to Russia to
be executed for being a Jew. His name changed to Mark Rothko at that point.
Rothko was a very well educated man that went to Yale, but didn’t receive his
diploma or acknowledgement from Yale until after he was a successful painter.
Rothko did attend the Art Students League of New York in 1923, and his mentors
were Arshile Gorky, Max Weber, and Milton Avery. Rothko was influenced by
German Expressionism (Awesome!-me too!) and this is when he would create a
mixture of Surrealism, Cubism, and Abstraction in his paintings. Rothko
throughout his life had dealt with depression and trying times when eventually
he killed himself in his studio in 1970 in New York City.
Painting:
“Sea Fantasy” 1946. (See Attachment) Rothko was into dreams, Greek mythology,
and at the time Sigmund Freud was the in thing- the unconscious mind. This
painting looks very similar to Arshile Gorky or Salvador Deli with the floating
weird shapes of what seems to be body parts against a dull in color, open back
drop. When viewing this piece I felt torn apart, yet the pieces are connected
by the straight lines that seem to float between the pieces. It reminds me of
war or starvation of some sort. But, as you view this painting you do see in
the background the placement of two, maybe three blocks or rectangles of raw
sienna or orca yellow on top. In the middle, it’s a lighter color, rectangle of
raw sienna, etc. and then the bottom half is a dull gray color. Do you see it?
I didn’t recognize it either until I heard someone talking about it in the
museum and sure enough; it’s in almost all of his earlier work in the 1940’s.
The back ground was layered in a transparent color in rectangles while the
images were laid on top of it. His images were of the unconscious mind, a
spiritual turmoil of Jesus crucifixion to Greek mythology.
Painting:
“No.9” 1948. Color palette is astounding with reds, oranges, pinks, whites, and
then blues. This painting is a good example of his well known color field
painting techniques on canvas. Now, you see that the image is not even
recognizable; the images have become forms in space. Yes, abstract art at its
best. However, Rothko did not like being called an Abstract Expressionist as in
Jackson Pollock, or even concerned himself a Surrealist painter. Rothko wanted
to be recognized as an American Artist and that’s it! However, he continually
and tirelessly wanted his paintings to show emotions or feelings from the
painting itself. Rothko wanted the painting to speak for itself. Sounds like
Jackson Pollock, don’t you think? As I viewed this painting, I got the feeling
that I was in a crowd and that the colors of reds were warnings ahead, yet I
felt at ease because of the forms in front of me where there to protect me from
harm. I am sure everyone that views this painting will feel the same or
different depending what they feel and see. I must say I was attracted to the different
colors of red.
Paintings:
“No. 8 and No. 18” 1949. These two paintings are rectangle in shapes and the
paint is very transparent or almost scrapped off. I enjoyed No. 8 more than No.
18 because of the colors in No. 8. I heard that you have to view his paintings
18 inches away from them and be engulfed in the feeling of the painting. In
which, it is easy to do because of the paintings are huge in size. Therefore, I
did just that on No. 8. While viewing the painting, I felt warmth, passion, and
with the yellow/white on top of painting I felt that it was escape from this
passion or a brighter side of this passion I was feeling. The white lines that
appear on the left, kind of confused me for it made me feel isolated yet, the
break in the lines made it feel the overflowing of passion with the bright
orange/red color that takes up most of the painting. No. 18 painting was a
little more different, not so vibrant of color. No.18 was more soothing on the
eyes with its dark green, dark purple and black/blue rectangle that takes up
most of the painting. Underneath these rectangles is a dull yellow color/s for the
back ground. The rectangle shapes are then topped off with a bright orange/red
color line. Well, this one was hard at first, but I felt earth colors, or like lying
on your belly on a patch of grass and looking up at the black void of a sky. It
was for sure, an earthly feeling. Can you imagine that the bright sun (the
yellow color) as the background and the rectangles are blocking your view to
see what’s behind the blocks or within them?
Maybe
Rothko was right in saying, “Less is more”.
He wanted his paintings to be a universal language that everyone could
relate to or be a part of. The forms within the paintings became large voids of
color, sometimes stacked on top of each other but, the color combinations immediately
gave off feelings. Even the way the oil paint was smeared or wiped off or even deluded
to make the painting feel ancient or worn down.
Well,
what do you think? What do you feel? Besides
his paintings looking like something you can do yourself, do you see what he
was trying to do as a painter? Why yes, as a painter, I know the feeling of
having a painting to speak for itself. It seems the paintings make more sense
after knowing the artists back ground first. We should view paintings before
knowing the artist or even better just knowing the style of painting from that
particular artist.
Exercise:
Stare at one these paintings (mentioned above) for about 15 minutes and see if
you feel anything? Try first things that jump into to your mind while your eyes
focus and travel on certain parts of the painting and what does that shape or
color make you feel? or Does it just make you feel….RED?
