Untitled
Artist: Mark Rothko (American, 1903-1970)
Date: 1960
Dimensions:
92 7/8 × 81 × 1 5/8 in. (235.9 × 205.7 × 4.1 cm)
Medium: mixed media on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1970.55
Label Text:I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.
Despite the apparent absence of subject matter in his art, Rothko’s color rectangles hovering against a field of another color express timeless and tragic themes of human experience. By concentrating on color and simple shapes, he removed any narrative story or associations with the physical world, allowing for a more direct emotional experience. Acutely aware of the viewer’s role in his art, Rothko wrote, “a picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer.”
Painted in the dark tonalities Rothko favored during the last 20 years of his life, Untitled consists of thin layers of paint stained into the canvas weave. The edges of all forms have been softened, allowing the rectangles to float toward the viewer or dissolve into the mysterious background.
Despite the apparent absence of subject matter in his art, Rothko’s color rectangles hovering against a field of another color express timeless and tragic themes of human experience. By concentrating on color and simple shapes, he removed any narrative story or associations with the physical world, allowing for a more direct emotional experience. Acutely aware of the viewer’s role in his art, Rothko wrote, “a picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer.”
Painted in the dark tonalities Rothko favored during the last 20 years of his life, Untitled consists of thin layers of paint stained into the canvas weave. The edges of all forms have been softened, allowing the rectangles to float toward the viewer or dissolve into the mysterious background.
Not on view
In Collection(s)