Mark Rothko: Beauty, Fame, Death
So, this book I've beeen reading on Mark Rothko has been very intellectually stimulating...it brings up so many points about art and life that I can relate to. Halfway through the book, the author points out when Rothko really found his voice, in 1949 - his earliest canvases being busier with some classical/mythological subject matter until his work gradually became clarified, focused, and pure. Note, I do not mean simplified. A block of color, or a color field, is not necessarily simple.
The change was a process - a honing until razor sharp, with his multiforms in the middle. Anyway, so I've been thinking that when one is engaged in making an art (regardless of medium), it is therapeutic. When I make music, it does something to me nothing else can touch. It is wholly enveloping. Rothko loved music and poetry (like Stanley Kunitz, who delivered his eulogy). He felt an affinity to Nietzsche, who also loved music. According to this book, "Nietzsche believed music is the true language of emotion". The intimacy in Rothko's works has been compared to chamber music.
In his eulogy, Stanley Kunitz remarked that Rothko's art had an '"effect of a pulsing spiritual life, of an imminent epiphany."' This statement completely encapsulates how I feel when I look at my favorite Rothko pieces. I've tried to think of my own explanation of why I like them, but "imminent epiphany" says it all. I find that so exciting and inspiring.
Other quotes reflecting my reaction to Rothko:
'"timeless, warm"' Dominique de Menil
"Rothko sought to have his visitor enter a universe of stillness, to set him into an atmosphere of meditative contemplation and awe." Jacob Baal-Teshuva, author of Rothko
His commission for the Rothko Chapel was so apt. It is a place of contemplation and awe which he created.
However, not everyone felt the same. In Rothko, Gerhard Richter is quoted as saying, "The paintings were a shock. They were so serious, not wild like Warhol...Although the paintings apparently had a transcendental aspiration, they were used for decorative purposes, and looked overly beautiful in collectors' apartments." In the early 1950s, Fortune magazine declared Rothko's art to be a good investment. His newfound status, financial success, and increasing notoriety led to dissolution of some of his most treasured friendships with fellow artists. And '"[W]ith the public recognition he was gradully gaining Mark started to lose control. More and more collectors, curators, and museum directors wanted to meet him, to visit his studio, and to buy his paintings. He felt insecure and inhibited...the new collectors were a puzzle to him; he never knew whether they really liked the work, or whether they merely wanted a 'new Rothko,' another feather in their crown."'
More on the Warhol tip:
In the sixties, Pop Art's popularity rose while Abstract Expressionism came to be seen as "unyielding, haughty, and elitist" and "long out of date". "Rothko declared the Pop artists as '"charlatans and young opportunists."' In 1962, he and some other artists including Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and William De Kooning went to see a show of the Pop Art newcomers and left the gallery in a rage. Rothko was quoted as saying '"Are these young artists plotting to kill us all?"'
______________________________
Ka'aba in New York :: and The Egyptian Connection
{This book was meant for me, NOW.}
Solid things appeal to me, such as the Ka'aba.
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba): The Kaaba is the holiest place in Islam. The Kaaba is a large masonry structure roughly the shape of a cube . (The name "Kaaba" comes from the Arabic word meaning cube). It is made of granite from the hills near Mecca. It is covered by a black silk cloth decorated with gold-embroidered calligraphy. This cloth is known as the kiswah; it is replaced yearly.
As a young girl, I remember one time when I went to Turkiye, and I was given a large poster with a picture of the Ka'aba. The cube was surrounded by pilgrims. My mom's aunt had been to Mecca twice - once with her husband and then once with her son. The black box in the picture struck me as holy and mysterious...and knowing I had relatives who had been there was fascinating. Apparently, as with the Mormon Temple, I cannot go in the Ka'aba because of my agnosticism.
The Ka'aba, like Rothko, speaks to my subconscious. I didn't make the connection until I spotted the title of a book by Thomas Kellein in the Selected Bibliography in the back of the Rothko book. It's called Mark Rothko: Kaaba in New York. It was a brilliant leap that shouted out to me.
{I also think of subwoofers as a Ka'aba of sorts - emanating certain visceral frequencies that elicit reactions. Especially Enuma Elish's Subwoofer Midwest.}
This next section I will just quote directly from the book:
"The artist felt himself deeply honored by the invitation to attend the inauguration in January 1961 of John F. Kennedy as the 35th president of the United States. Rothko traveled to Washington by train, together with Franz Kline and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Zogbaum. Following the ceremony, they were invited to attend a ball where they were seated next to the president's father, Joseph Kennedy. In the same year, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Rothko's works, encompassing 48 paintings. The curator of the exhibition was Peter Selz, who in his essay for the catalog wrote: '"Celebrating the death of civilization...[Rothko's] open rectangles suggest the rims of flame in containing fires, or the entrances to tombs, like the doors to the dwellings of the dead in Egyptian pyramids, behind which sculptors kept the kings 'alive' for eternity in the Ka. But unlike the doors of the dead, which were meant to shut out the living from the place of absolute might, even of patrician death, these paintings - open sarcophagi - moodily dare, and thus invite the spectator to enter their Orphic cycles. Their subject might be death and resurrection in classical, not Christian mythology: the artist descending to Hades to find the Eurydice of his vision. The door to the tomb opens for the artist in search of his muse."'
This parallel also spoke to me, as when I was about 17 I went through a phase of being very interested in Egyptian mythology and culture. I even went to an Egyptian festival in Houston where I bought some turquoise scarabs and a canvas bag with a pretty kohl-eyed lady on it...plus the Kennedy connection is always a little cryptic and mildly interesting to me.
I work at Harvard, and somewhere on this campus, stored in a dark room, are 5 Rothko murals. The story behind his commission from Harvard in 1962 is fascinating and tragic.
Rothko made 22 sketches, from which 5 murals were made and eventually chosen for Harvard's Holyoke Center. Just as Rothko finished them, then president of Harvard Nathan Pusey visited Rothko in his studio in New York. According to the book, Rothko welcomed him with a glass of whiskey and the two engaged in a lengthy discussion. Apparently, Pusey had little understanding of contemporary art. When Rothko asked Pusey for his verdict, the mid-western Methodist vacillated but finally responded that he found them' "very sorrowful"'. But once Rothko explained that the "dark emotion created by the triptych was intended to reflect the suffering of Christ on Good Friday, while the two somewhat brighter pictures were meant to invoke Easter Sunday and the Resurrection", Pusey was impressed and excited, believing Rothko "to be a philosopher with a universal vision and message". Sadly, the murals were placed in a room exposed to excessive sunbeams, and even though fiberglass shades were installed to curb the harmful effects, the paintings were irrevocably ruined - the deep reds diminished so much that the once rich works can now only be appreciated on slides. Slides - a far cry from canvases almost 300cm wide and just as tall. Paltry. The light killed the darkness and intensity. A metaphor I don't feel I need to explain.
Some things don't hold up well under microscopic scrutiny; all the better to see their faults, cracks, crevices, imperfections...
Rothko's Sufferings:
Failed health - excessive drinking and smoking
Impotence
Failed marriages (2)
Depression
Financially cheated by his most trusted personal advisor
Suicide by slit wrists and acute poisoning due to antidepressants
But in the end, he created beauty that lives on and transcends.
I hope to own a Rothko someday...
The change was a process - a honing until razor sharp, with his multiforms in the middle. Anyway, so I've been thinking that when one is engaged in making an art (regardless of medium), it is therapeutic. When I make music, it does something to me nothing else can touch. It is wholly enveloping. Rothko loved music and poetry (like Stanley Kunitz, who delivered his eulogy). He felt an affinity to Nietzsche, who also loved music. According to this book, "Nietzsche believed music is the true language of emotion". The intimacy in Rothko's works has been compared to chamber music.
In his eulogy, Stanley Kunitz remarked that Rothko's art had an '"effect of a pulsing spiritual life, of an imminent epiphany."' This statement completely encapsulates how I feel when I look at my favorite Rothko pieces. I've tried to think of my own explanation of why I like them, but "imminent epiphany" says it all. I find that so exciting and inspiring.
Other quotes reflecting my reaction to Rothko:
'"timeless, warm"' Dominique de Menil
"Rothko sought to have his visitor enter a universe of stillness, to set him into an atmosphere of meditative contemplation and awe." Jacob Baal-Teshuva, author of Rothko
His commission for the Rothko Chapel was so apt. It is a place of contemplation and awe which he created.
However, not everyone felt the same. In Rothko, Gerhard Richter is quoted as saying, "The paintings were a shock. They were so serious, not wild like Warhol...Although the paintings apparently had a transcendental aspiration, they were used for decorative purposes, and looked overly beautiful in collectors' apartments." In the early 1950s, Fortune magazine declared Rothko's art to be a good investment. His newfound status, financial success, and increasing notoriety led to dissolution of some of his most treasured friendships with fellow artists. And '"[W]ith the public recognition he was gradully gaining Mark started to lose control. More and more collectors, curators, and museum directors wanted to meet him, to visit his studio, and to buy his paintings. He felt insecure and inhibited...the new collectors were a puzzle to him; he never knew whether they really liked the work, or whether they merely wanted a 'new Rothko,' another feather in their crown."'
More on the Warhol tip:
In the sixties, Pop Art's popularity rose while Abstract Expressionism came to be seen as "unyielding, haughty, and elitist" and "long out of date". "Rothko declared the Pop artists as '"charlatans and young opportunists."' In 1962, he and some other artists including Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and William De Kooning went to see a show of the Pop Art newcomers and left the gallery in a rage. Rothko was quoted as saying '"Are these young artists plotting to kill us all?"'
______________________________
Ka'aba in New York :: and The Egyptian Connection
{This book was meant for me, NOW.}
Solid things appeal to me, such as the Ka'aba.
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba): The Kaaba is the holiest place in Islam. The Kaaba is a large masonry structure roughly the shape of a cube . (The name "Kaaba" comes from the Arabic word meaning cube). It is made of granite from the hills near Mecca. It is covered by a black silk cloth decorated with gold-embroidered calligraphy. This cloth is known as the kiswah; it is replaced yearly.
As a young girl, I remember one time when I went to Turkiye, and I was given a large poster with a picture of the Ka'aba. The cube was surrounded by pilgrims. My mom's aunt had been to Mecca twice - once with her husband and then once with her son. The black box in the picture struck me as holy and mysterious...and knowing I had relatives who had been there was fascinating. Apparently, as with the Mormon Temple, I cannot go in the Ka'aba because of my agnosticism.
The Ka'aba, like Rothko, speaks to my subconscious. I didn't make the connection until I spotted the title of a book by Thomas Kellein in the Selected Bibliography in the back of the Rothko book. It's called Mark Rothko: Kaaba in New York. It was a brilliant leap that shouted out to me.
{I also think of subwoofers as a Ka'aba of sorts - emanating certain visceral frequencies that elicit reactions. Especially Enuma Elish's Subwoofer Midwest.}
This next section I will just quote directly from the book:
"The artist felt himself deeply honored by the invitation to attend the inauguration in January 1961 of John F. Kennedy as the 35th president of the United States. Rothko traveled to Washington by train, together with Franz Kline and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Zogbaum. Following the ceremony, they were invited to attend a ball where they were seated next to the president's father, Joseph Kennedy. In the same year, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Rothko's works, encompassing 48 paintings. The curator of the exhibition was Peter Selz, who in his essay for the catalog wrote: '"Celebrating the death of civilization...[Rothko's] open rectangles suggest the rims of flame in containing fires, or the entrances to tombs, like the doors to the dwellings of the dead in Egyptian pyramids, behind which sculptors kept the kings 'alive' for eternity in the Ka. But unlike the doors of the dead, which were meant to shut out the living from the place of absolute might, even of patrician death, these paintings - open sarcophagi - moodily dare, and thus invite the spectator to enter their Orphic cycles. Their subject might be death and resurrection in classical, not Christian mythology: the artist descending to Hades to find the Eurydice of his vision. The door to the tomb opens for the artist in search of his muse."'
This parallel also spoke to me, as when I was about 17 I went through a phase of being very interested in Egyptian mythology and culture. I even went to an Egyptian festival in Houston where I bought some turquoise scarabs and a canvas bag with a pretty kohl-eyed lady on it...plus the Kennedy connection is always a little cryptic and mildly interesting to me.
I work at Harvard, and somewhere on this campus, stored in a dark room, are 5 Rothko murals. The story behind his commission from Harvard in 1962 is fascinating and tragic.
Rothko made 22 sketches, from which 5 murals were made and eventually chosen for Harvard's Holyoke Center. Just as Rothko finished them, then president of Harvard Nathan Pusey visited Rothko in his studio in New York. According to the book, Rothko welcomed him with a glass of whiskey and the two engaged in a lengthy discussion. Apparently, Pusey had little understanding of contemporary art. When Rothko asked Pusey for his verdict, the mid-western Methodist vacillated but finally responded that he found them' "very sorrowful"'. But once Rothko explained that the "dark emotion created by the triptych was intended to reflect the suffering of Christ on Good Friday, while the two somewhat brighter pictures were meant to invoke Easter Sunday and the Resurrection", Pusey was impressed and excited, believing Rothko "to be a philosopher with a universal vision and message". Sadly, the murals were placed in a room exposed to excessive sunbeams, and even though fiberglass shades were installed to curb the harmful effects, the paintings were irrevocably ruined - the deep reds diminished so much that the once rich works can now only be appreciated on slides. Slides - a far cry from canvases almost 300cm wide and just as tall. Paltry. The light killed the darkness and intensity. A metaphor I don't feel I need to explain.
Some things don't hold up well under microscopic scrutiny; all the better to see their faults, cracks, crevices, imperfections...
Rothko's Sufferings:
Failed health - excessive drinking and smoking
Impotence
Failed marriages (2)
Depression
Financially cheated by his most trusted personal advisor
Suicide by slit wrists and acute poisoning due to antidepressants
But in the end, he created beauty that lives on and transcends.
I hope to own a Rothko someday...
posted by Ajda the Turkish Queen at 6:26 AM
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