Research: Artist, Mark Rothko

Research: Mark Rothko (1903 – 1970)

Introduction

Rothko was an American painter who did not belong to any particular art movement, but he is generally identified as an abstract expressionist. Abstract expressionism is the term applied to forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterised by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity, such as the “Drip” paintings made by Pollock.

Rothko is probably best known as a pioneer of colour field painting – a movement characterised by simplified compositions of unbroken colour, which produced a flat picture plane.

Works

The Seagram Room, Tate Modern

The Seagram Room at Tate Modern is set aside for the display of a set of large Rothko murals. They are curated in their own room to provide the setting which Rothko himself envisaged.

Rothko saw these huge paintings as objects of contemplation, demanding the viewer’s complete absorption. They evoke feelings of spirituality.

Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon, 1958, Support: 2667 x 3812 mm
The background to the murals is that in the late 1950s, Rothko was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the fashionable Four Seasons restaurant, in the Seagram Building on Park Avenue, New York.

During this project Rothko was influenced by Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library in Florence, which he had recently visited. The Library was dark and claustrophobic and included blind windows which added to a deliberately oppressive atmosphere. The room achieved the feeling that Rothko was seeking. As a result, Rothko created murals which were darker in mood than his previous work, and were predominantly maroon, dark red and black in colour.

Rothko realised that the setting of the restaurant would not be a suitable location for such works and decided to withdraw from the commission. The final murals were subsequently presented as a series to the Tate Gallery for display.

The installation includes all nine of the paintings owned by Tate. They are curated as Rothko intended, in reduced light and in a compact space. The impact of the coloured surfaces slowly emerges, and evokes feelings of meditation:

“Almost everyone who enters the room feels an urge to sit down on the benches in the middle of the space. It's as if the emotional weight of these sombre works instinctively makes you sit, instantly drained by them. Before you even have time to try to compose a rational understanding of them, they have a psychological impact”.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/mar/30/tate-modern-mark-rothko-room

I have visited the Rothko Room at Tate Modern and can confirm being overwhelmed by the scale and sense of emotion produced by the series of paintings. I sat on a bench and soaked up the atmosphere. I felt totally engaged by the closed-in, contemplative mood which the paintings evoke. I think that this is to do with scale – the enormity and intensity of the works absorb the conscientiousness.

Black on Maroon (above) is a large unframed oil painting on a horizontally orientated rectangular canvas. The base colour of the painting is a deep maroon, overlaid with a large black rectangle, which encloses two narrow, maroon rectangles, suggesting a window. The black paint is a solid block of colour, but the edges are blurred. Different pigments have been used within the maroon and the changing tones gives a sense of depth.

The sombre colour scheme and claustrophobic composition adds to the impact and drama of the work.

Conclusions and relevance to my practice

At the moment I am experimenting in the use of larger canvases. I have already discussed the work of Peter Doig and illustrated how he uses scale to tell narrative and to exploit the sensuous nature of the painting medium.

Rothko brings a different element to the discussion. By sheer size, colour, and composition, Rothko very cleverly creates an atmosphere of spirituality. I felt that it was almost like being inside a church when I visited the Seagram Murals. Although I would not want to work in a "colour field style", I do think that I can gain insight by considering how size, coupled with colour and composition, can add to the mood and atmosphere of a work.