© Paolo Dala
[L] Adam
Barnett Newman (1951-1952)
The National Art Center (Minato City, Tokyo, Japan)
[M] Untitled
Mark Rothko (1969)
The National Art Center (Minato City, Tokyo, Japan)
[R] Light Red over Black
Mark Rothko (1957)
The National Art Center (Minato City, Tokyo, Japan)
Paintings That Spoke Of The "Tragedy Of Being Human"
The most unexpectedly uplifting and consoling artist of the 20th century was the abstract painter Mark Rothko, the high priest of grief and loss... Appalled by the sentimentality around him, he learnt to make art that was insular, unrelenting, somber and oriented towards pain. Rothko's favorite colors were burnt burgundy, dark gray, pitch black, and blood red, occasionally alleviated by a sliver of yellow...
In 1958, Rothko was offered a large sum to put some murals for a soon to be opened opulent New York Restaurant, the Four Seasons on Park Avenue. It was, as he put it,
"a place where the richest bastards of New York will come to feed and show off".
His [Rothko's] intentions for them soon became clear:
"I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room."
And to that end, Rothko set to work on some large black and maroon color fields expressing a mood of terror and archaic anguish.
However, shortly before the paintings were due to go on display, Rothko had a change of mind [He cancelled the exhibition.], called up his patrons, explained his feelings, and sent back the money. He then gave his paintings to London's Tate Gallery where they were hung in a quiet, airy, contemplative, religious-seeming space, that enclosed the viewer in an atmosphere of meditative mortification. The paintings remain ideal companions for visitors who drift into the gallery at their wit's end, who might be working through the loss of a partner or the ruin of their career - and who need more than anything else to know that they are not alone.
The School of Life
ART/ARCHITECTURE - Mark Rothko
Fortunately, some of the collections from the Tate was in Tokyo when I was in Japan and I was finally able to see a couple of paintings by the legendary Mark Rothko. It was a surreal experience. I felt something that couldn't really explain while I was standing in front of a Rothko Painting.
[Sorry for the blurry photo. A museum security personnel came to and asked me to put my phone away while I was taking this photo. Apparently, you can take photos of other artwork, like the artworks of Claude Monet, but you can't take a photo of Mark Rothko's paintings.]
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While writers such as Shakespeare cast him as a purveyor of wise witticisms, many visual artists portrayed the fool as an uncouth lecher who makes a mockery of love.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
– William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1
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Green in Modernism
Yellow in Post-Impressionism // Black in Van Gogh's Paintings // Violet in Sisley's Paintings // Blue in Sisley's Landscapes // Edvard Munch's Paintings
View from the studio window of the artist in Paris (1900) by Paula Modersohn Becker // George Moore in the Artist's Garden (1879) by Edouard Manet // Haystack in the evening light (1902) by Paula Modersohn Becker // Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (1890) by Ramon Casas // Promenade (1880) by Edouard Manet // Birch Trunk in front of Landscape (1903) by Paula Modersohn Becker
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