Colour Theory

White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), 1950Today is the birthday of one of my favourite painters: Mark Rothko. He was born in Latvia in 1903, and died in 1970 in New York City. An abstract expressionist, he is most famous for his enormous colourfield paintings. Rothko says of his work:

‘I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however … is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command!’

No.8, 1952It is so true: one can lose oneself standing before a huge painting. I have seen very few in real life, but I find them mesmerising, hypnotic. They both confront and encourage one to look inward. He says:

‘If you are only moved by color relationships [in my paintings], you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom.

‘The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions.. the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships then you miss the point.’

See all his paintings here.