Fields of Color [Stepping Inside].

One of my favorite American painters is Mark Rothko.  Some art historians argue that Rothko SHOULD NOT be considered American because he was born into the Russian Empire, in what now is Latvia, pre-WWI.  He was raised Jewish is Czarist Russia and luckily never experienced significant discrimination as a child.  That doesn’t mean his childhood was exactly pleasant, though.

Rothko was raised in a city, Dvinsk, where violence against Jews simply didn’t happen; but it was happening everywhere else.  Any fear that comes with such uncertainty and zero stability must be rough on a small child… you’ve been TOLD you’re safe (you know it deep down in your head) yet that fear, spawned from stories of the next town over, still lingers with all it’s un-possibilities.   Apparently though he and his siblings were raised in a Jewish household which focused on a socio political upbringing more so than a religious one.  Still though, I’d imagine turn of the century Eastern Europe as under the political boundaries of Czarism (and the growing Socialist movement) remaining very true to it’s very orthodox religious history and undercurrents.

Rothko came to the United States as a grade schooler, where he did exceptionally well.  So well in fact (in high school) that he was offered a scholarship to take up studying a Yale.  After a year though, the school suspended his scholarship indefinitely; turns out, Yale made him the scholarship offer basically on the grounds of luring one of his friends, an economist and philosopher, to the school.  Rothko quickly became very cynical about the school, and the Ivy-league in general.  The White Anglo Saxon Protestants must have been the “frat dudes” of his time; he hated the elitism and racism which only seemed to be spewing out of any W.A-S Protestant at a school like Yale.  He eventually dropped out.

Rothko’s artistic “story arc” is an interesting one; an artistic maturation involving child painting, the New Deal, Nietzsche, classic mythology in a sarcastic manner, and multiforms most likely deserves the word “interesting”.  It wasn’t until later in his career that Rothko hit his stride perfectly.  In these “signature” years, his style moved farther and farther away from his Abstract-Expressionist roots, friends, peers, and scene.  I always thought that among the Abstract Expressionists this guy’s, Mark Rothko’s, painting was the LEAST pompous and self absorbed.  One Google search comparison between Rothko and any one of his Abstract Expressionist peers at the time would give away this impression.  Shit, the movement itself is totally self centered with the highest of expectations and goals.  The infamous “Ten” of NYC (this of course included artists like Jackson Pollack) preached “to protest against the reputed equivalence of American painting and literal painting”.  Talk about lofty goals; vision exceeding reach.

Somehow Rothko’s paintings never come off that way, probably because they’re so… in so many words… BORING.  They lack the completely insane freelance movement of someone like Jackson Pollack’s paintings.  But alas NO!  They truly are not boring.  They’re calmly meditative, patient, and immersive as fuck.  And all of these paintings are relatively large.  Rothko wanted people individually to stand about a foot and a half away when viewing any one of these.  The whole point was to be overwhelmed by the size, which again submerges you INTO the painting, but NOT overwhelmed by the shapes, colors, movement, and layout.  In this sense, Rothko is NOT an Abstract Expressionist.  Probably more of a “minimalist”.  But I always hated categorizing and pigeon holeing someone like Rothko.  That’s enough yacking… here’s a taste of what I’m talking about:

(click any one of these for the JPG on its own)

Thanks to ANYONE, and I mean anyone, who can overlook Pollack, Kransner, Gorky, de Koonig, etc and appreciate Mark Rothko as somewhat of a rougue during that time; or just anyone who’s curious enough to look up stuff on him.  Thank you.

-Sonny

~ by sonnywilkins on July 11, 2008.