Paradise Lost

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko was an artist who emerged in the 1940's "Ð'...as a new collective voice in American art." (1) Rothko had developed a passionate new form of abstract painting during his five decades of being an artist. His work paid close attention to formal elements such as: color, shape, balance, depth, composition, and scale. Rothko did not refer to his work in respect to simple elements, he said, "It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing." (1)

Mark Rothko was born with the name Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, Russia on September 25, 1903. His family had immigrated to the United States when Mark was ten years old and they established themselves in Portland, Oregon. In 1921 Rothko went to Yale where he studied numerous subjects with the original intensions of becoming an engineer or an attorney. He left his studies at Yale in the fall of 1923 and moved to New York City.

In the 1920's after leaving Yale, Rothko attended some classes at the Art Students League where he studied under Max Weber.Rothko later met and became friends with the modernist painter Milton Avery who greatly influenced Rothko's early developments as an artist.

Rothko's earlier works were of an expressionist style. During the 1940's his imagery became more and more symbolic. Rothko worked with many themes such as tragedy, ecstasy, and the sublime, as well as myth, prophecy, archaic ritual, and the unconscious mind. Rothko eventually became inspired by the surrealist technique and slowly transformed his paintings from expressionist to surrealist to abstract. And although he worked with many themes over his career, he mostly wanted to avoid explaining the content of his work because he believed that the abstract image could directly represent the fundamental nature of Ð''human drama.'

Rothko's abstract work molded mostly into images of many rectangles on a canvas with much attention paid to color. By 1950, Rothko had reduced his pieces from several rectangles down to two, three, or four, floating rectangles that would be vertically aligned against a colored ground, this becoming his signature style. Although his techniques seemed simple, there were many rich effects that he used. One of which would be changing the final orientation of his painting during later stages of its production to give the effect of the paint running upward. During the 1950's Rothko's work began to darken dramatically and he shifted during the 50's and 60's to working on paper.

It was on February 25, 1970 that Mark Rothko committed suicide being physically ill and suffering from depression. Rothko's work at the time of his death was known throughout Europe and America. He was recognized for his role in the development of nonrepresentational art and his use of vibrant color in nonobjective painting to express strong emotional or spiritual content.

This is painting Number 2 by Mark Rothko done