Mark Rothko: Why is his work considered "art", and why so valuable?

[MilTan]

@pulykamell

I am not going to try to explain Rothko’s work, but I, too, was a bit puzzled by his high esteem in the art world. Then I saw a Rothko in person. I might be overstating a bit when I say it’s the closest I’ve ever had to a religious experience, but not by much. (Pollack is another one that just viscerally hits me in all the right places.) There’s just an other wordly shimmer to his paintings that draws me in and makes me want to stare and stare and meditate upon them. I know it weird and smacks a bit of woo, but that’s how I feel about them, and presumably others get a similar reaction.

I could not agree more with this post, right down to the fact that I have a similar reaction to Pollack (“meh” in print, gobsmacking in person).

[RickJay]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Here is a thread that explores Rothko’s art in person and the emotional impact it can have.

It’s mostly pulykamell repeating the same words over and over.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@RickJay

It’s mostly pulykamell repeating the same words over and over.

I’m not sure you are correct. (From the thread I linked to)

@pulykamell

Ah, I didn’t notice this one. Rothko. He’s one of those guys that I didn’t quite get by looking at his pictures in books. When I first saw a Rothko in person, I was floored. I don’t know what the hell he does or how he does it, but his paintings just “vibrate” and exude this ethereal spirituality, for lack of better expression. I know it sounds like crazy talk, but that was my first experience with Rothko in person-- a guy whose work I didn’t expect to like, I see it and have a sublime moment. If someone were to ask me how to represent “spirit” in a painting, I would point them to Rothko.

@lissener

Yeah, Rothko is a strange experience: he somehow managed to figure out how to communicate raw, powerful emotions with nothing but color and shapes. Seeing Rothko in person is a life-changing experience.

@pulykamell

I know it’s not directed at me, but for me at least, it obviously changed my opinion of Rothko in one fell swoop. Secondly, it taught me never ever to judge a painting by its representation as a reprint or on the web. Thirdly, it’s the closest I’ve had to a truly religious experience in the last twenty or so years. I’m not a religious person, but if I were, Rothko would be proof to me that artists talk to gods.

@Miller

I had a similar experience with Rothko, though not as strongly as you and lissener. But it was definitly the “lightbulb” effect. One look at his work in the flesh, and something that I’d never seen the appeal of just clicked for me. Not just him, but minimalism in general. Color has always been one of the tools artists have used to convey emotion, but Rothko could do more using only that tool as most other artists could do with a fully equipped metaphorical machine shop. Rothko was a fucking samurai. He opened up a whole bunch of other artists for me, too, who did the same thing using other tools.

My real Road to Damascus moment was when I saw Guernica in person. I’d seen reprints of it over and over, and while I didn’t dislike it or anything, I thought I’d “gotten” it. Then I saw it in Madrid, life sized, and I almost ran from the gallery. It was overwhelming. It made me sick to my stomach. It was amazing. I’ve never been so affected by any other painting. Hell, there are damned few works of art in any medium that have affected me like that.

You remember a few years back, there was that guy who had stolen billions of dollars worth of art over the years, and his mother dumped most of it into a canal so that it couldn’t be used as evidence against her son? I remember arguing here that it wasn’t really that big a deal, because we had photographs of most of it in art books and the like.

I was a goddamned idiot.

@Idlewild

I had seen photos of Rothko’s work before, but last year I was in Houston dealing with in-law crisis and my husband and I managed to sneak away to the Rothko Chapel. At first I was a little underwhelmed by what appeared to be relatively monochromatic panels, but as I took time to sit with each painting individually, they came to life in front of me as details and movement revealed themselves. The way it was lit was also something that could not be conveyed in a photograph, there was a skylight and as the light changed and moved, the paintings showed different moods. Truly, truly breathtaking work. Probably almost completely unphotographable.

[papergirl]

I haven’t seen any of his work in person, but there’s something about them that really, really appeals to me. I did a bunch of chalk pastels awhile back (so NOT an artist, just playing) and they all looked like Rothko imitations. So maybe part of my bias is that if I were a True Artist, I might wish I’d had that idea first.
It’s an interesting experiment to try to do a work that looks like a Rothko…it may look like it takes five minutes, but it’s layers and layers and layers of colors. It’s amazing and sort of hypnotic, and I suspect I’d feel that way were I to see one of his works in person.

[tdn]

I’ve been to a restaurant a few times recently where a local artist has been doing his or her own versions of Rothko’s stuff. Probably not nearly as good, but I really enjoy them. I can’t explain why.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@pulykamell

You shouldn’t feel stupid about it. If it doesn’t move you, it doesn’t move you. While a certain amount of context and experience can help in appreciating art, I do believe the bulk of appreciating it is still visceral and sensory, not intellectual.

This true. Generally my reaction to seeing art I don’t like is to say “I don’t like it”, not “This isn’t art”.

[pulykamell]

@RickJay

It’s mostly pulykamell repeating the same words over and over.

I didn’t read the linked thread, but you wouldn’t be the first to accuse me of repeating myself.

[even_sven]

I agree, it’s a “you have to be there” kind of thing. The colors kind of float and shimmer. It’s unreal.

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

Aside from seeing art in person, sometimes you just need to research a bit what the artist was trying to accomplish. I never grokked Mondrian, until I saw some of his work in the Tate gallery, and heard it explained by a docent. When you understand that he was trying to balance the “advancing” and “receding” feelings of the different sizes, shapes, and colors, you saw that he was actually creating a kind of visual symphony. After that, it all made sense, and I really enjoyed it.

I haven’t had that kind of epiphany with Rothko yet, but then the only place I’ve seen his work has been in Bertram Cooper’s office.

[Polerius]

I always thought it would be interesting if artists like Mark Rothko or Piet Mondrian painted what seemed to be simple pictures, but after they had sold a lot of them, say 900 pieces, they would announce that each piece was like a “pixel” and if you put the pieces together in a 30x30 grid in the right order, you would see a picture (e.g. the artist’s self-portrait)

[pulykamell]

@Polerius

I always thought it would be interesting if artists like Mark Rothko or Piet Mondrian painted what seemed to be simple pictures, but after they had sold a lot of them, say 900 pieces, they would announce that each piece was like a “pixel” and if you put the pieces together in a 30x30 grid in the right order, you would see a picture (e.g. the artist’s self-portrait)

Is that a real Mondrian? Because something looks off about it to me.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Let me jump on the “you have to see the real thing” bandwagon. If you only know art from reproductions, then you haven’t encountered art. The difference is so huge that the reality can stagger.

That happened to me again recently when I went to a show of Martin Lewis prints at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. I was actually there for the Rembrandt drawings and decided to take a quick look at this guy I’d never heard of on the way out. Jaw-dropping. I and my companions went from piece to piece wondering why this guy isn’t famous. He prefigured Rockwell but with the social commentary Rockwell didn’t introduce until the 1960s. Then we looked at the catalog that went with the exhibit. The tiny prints lay on the page. They were meaningless and trivial. The pieces on the wall were magnificent. Rockwell works well in reproduction. Lewis doesn’t.

I’ll probably never see another original of his again. You probably won’t either, so you’ll never believe me when I tell you how great Lewis is. He was, but if all you go by is the Internet you have no reason to think so.

[brittekland]

Give at least a minimal effort (read artist’s statement, theory of particular art movements…or minimum art history book) trying to understand before dismissing something someone spent lifetime creating.

[Tristan]

Thanks all… I’m certainly willing to give it a shot, in person, if I ever get the chance.

Turns out my co-worker was asking because his girl wanted him to go to a play that is currently playing based, in part, on this artist (I think). So he was doing a bit of research in advance, and was puzzled by why so many people were gaga over squares of paint.

After reading this thread, and another on a different board, he has determined to keep an open mind, and reserve his judgement until he can see it in person. ONe of the reasons I like that guy.

[WordMan]

Just adding my voice to the “in person, if it hits you” camp which **pulykamell **and others articulate so well. If you have a way to “get in the zone” - e.g., prayer, meditation, deep absorption in an athletic or artistic activity you love, etc. - then, to me, it feels like Rothko’s paintings evoke that feeling as the colors hover in front of you…

[Gyrate]

The Tate Modern has (or maybe “had”; I haven’t been in a while) an entire room of Rothko paintings. And while his work doesn’t speak to me I have friends who absolutely rave about it and I get the reaction, having had it to other modern art.

@MilTan

I could not agree more with this post, right down to the fact that I have a similar reaction to Pollack (“meh” in print, gobsmacking in person).

Me too. The Tate has “Summertime Number 9A” in its collection. Onscreen it’s a bunch of squiggles. Up close in person, it’s like being at Carnivale in Rio.

[Don_t_Panic]

As Twain might have said: Rothko’s paintings are better than they look.

(But seriously, I adore Rothko. “Hypnotic” very much sums it up for me, I could just get lost in those paintings forever. Like others here, I can’t really explain why, but it hits me on a very deep level, somehow.)

[tdn]

I once read that the rectangles on Rothko’s works are supposed to be representative of coffins. Is there any truth to that?

[WordMan]

@tdn

I once read that the rectangles on Rothko’s works are supposed to be representative of coffins. Is there any truth to that?

No clue. But honestly, I kinda don’t care - in no way meaning offense to you - I mean to say that looking for those deeper symbols in his work is kinda not the point. I think Rothko - in a way that is similar to Pollack - figured something about how our eyes and brains function. If you have a big enough field of vision (in this case, make a really big piece of art) to occupy a person’s full vision (more or less), and create this large-but-diffuse shape which *just *occupies that frame, it triggers sensory responses, e.g., toggling between our primary and peripheral vision - which causes cool things to trigger in our brain. It is a subtle thing and can’t just be replicated at a smaller size or with a machine-replicated version or something - which is why it is hard to explain.

As I said, I find the same thing with Pollack - when I step just close enough to his large canvases so they can envelope my field of vision, my eyes start moving around the canvas in a high-energy way that fully occupies my brain - it is fascinating, it doesn’t translate to book-sized reproductions and works for me as art. I would place the super-large portraits done by Chuck Close in the same category…

[Ashes_Ashes]

I agree with those who say seeing one in person makes a huge difference. In college I saw a Rothko showing at the LACMA and it was pretty much life changing.

It also helps if you paint and then try to replicate his work. I thought it would be fairly easy to do and finally had to put it away. Every so often I take that canvas out and give it another go. So far, after more than a decade of study, I’ve only managed an anemic approximation.