A little Rothko for a Friday afternoon

Of all the artists and all the paintings I love (which are a lot), I think Rothko will always be my favorite.



That's a really big deal to make such a claim, to have a numero uno, but I feel good about that decision.



No other paintings give me the same thrill. I was sitting here thinking about that and thought, why not share my love with the blorld? (Blog world.) (I made that up, but you can copy me if you want.) (You are welcome.)







Let's begin at the end, shall we? The above photo is of the Rothko Chapel in Houston. It's a non-denominational chapel, and Rothko was commissioned to do the works for the octagonal space. In the words of Mark Magleby, the most comical Art History professor at BYU, "You wonder if they thought they'd be getting a titch more color."



These paintings were done near the end of Rothko's life, which he ended himself, sadly enough. His life was all about color, and as he got more and more depressed, he used less and less of it.



Another thing Mark Magleby said about this was that the progression to black was natural, the way he started his works lighter, and they got darker and darker, until, one day, "The master of color was found in a pool of blood in his studio." (Mark Magleby again)



Something about tragedy in an artist's life makes me love them even more. That's probably why I dressed up like van Gogh in 4th grade and did a report on him. But anyway, now that we've heard the sad story, let's look at the beautiful works!

This pink and orange (and yellow and white and black and red) beauty is the desktop background on my monitors at work. That's right, I have 2, and they are enormous, so it's incredibly beautiful.

These last two are the Seagram murals, now at the Tate Modern in my very favorite London.



They have an awesome story too, just like the Chapel. And I had planned to paraphrase it, but then looked at Wikipedia (you know, for the most accurate information), to fill in some of the gaps in my mind, and the section on that is so great I decided to copy and paste it.



So, the story of the Seagram murals, from the Wikipedia page on Mark Rothko:



"In 1958, Rothko was awarded the first of two major mural commissions that proved both rewarding and frustrating. The beverage company Joseph Seagram and Sons had recently completed their new building on Park Avenue, designed by architects Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Rothko agreed to provide paintings for the building’s new luxury restaurant, The Four Seasons.

For Rothko, this commission presented a new challenge for it was the first time he was required not only to design a coordinated series of paintings, but to produce an artwork space concept for a large, specific interior. Over the following three months, Rothko completed forty paintings, three full series in dark red and brown. He altered his horizontal format to vertical to complement the restaurant’s vertical features: columns, walls, doors and windows.

The following June, Rothko and his family again traveled to Europe. While on the SS Independence he disclosed to John Fischer, publisher of Harper's, that his true intention for the Seagram murals was to paint "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room. If the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment. But they won’t. People can stand anything these days."

While in Europe, the Rothkos traveled to Rome, Florence, Venice and Pompeii. In Florence, he visited the library at San Lorenzo, to see first-hand the library’s Michelangelo room, from which he drew further inspiration for the murals. He remarked that the "room had exactly the feeling that I wanted [...] it gives the visitor the feeling of being caught in a room with the doors and windows walled-in shut." Following the trip to Italy, the Rothkos voyaged to Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam, before returning to the United States.

Once back in New York, Rothko and wife Mell visited the near-completed Four Seasons restaurant. Upset with the restaurant’s dining atmosphere, which he considered pretentious and inappropriate for the display of his works, Rothko immediately refused to continue the project, and returned the commission cash advance to the Seagram and Sons Company. Seagram had intended to honor Rothko's emergence to prominence through his selection, and his breach of contract and public expression of outrage were unexpected. (According to John Lahr's article "Escape Artist" [The New Yorker, April 12, 2010, p. 81], Rothko had expected his paintings to be displayed in the lobby of the Seagram Building, and discontinued the project when he learned they were to be hung in the restaurant.)

Rothko kept the commissioned paintings in storage until 1968. Given that Rothko had known in advance about the luxury decor of the restaurant and the social class of its future patrons, the exact motives for his abrupt repudiation remain mysterious. Rothko never fully explained his conflicted emotions over the incident, which exemplified his temperamental personality. The final series of Seagram Murals was dispersed and now hangs in three locations: London’s Tate Modern, Japan’s Kawamura Memorial Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C."





(The bolded parts are the parts I found the most interesting.)



And there you have it. My favorite artist: Mark Rothko. Do you love him too? Who is your fave, if not this masterful master?



p.s.

I forgot to mention, in case one has never had the incredible privilege of seeing a Rothko in real life, that his works are all enormous. I guess from the photos of the chapel and the Seagram murals you could guess that, but they are all 5 and 6 feet tall. They are amazing, they completely swallow you.