# Any Mark Rothko Fans Here?



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

He's my favorite painter. His works remind me of Bach (my latest favorite composer); mathematical and emotional.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Oh yes. 

He was a great inspiration to Makoto Fujimura, another artist I greatly appreciate. Fujimura is also a fine author. His Art and Faith is a must read.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

You betcha! I was hooked when I went to a contemporary exhibit in LA, and when I turned the corner, there was a room full of Rothkos. It was such an intense experience, I had to sit down. Without a doubt, he is my favorite painter.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> Oh yes.
> 
> He was a great inspiration to Makoto Fujimura, another artist I greatly appreciate. Fujimura is also a fine author. His Art and Faith is a must read.


I didn't like Fujimura so much, but thanks for sharing.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I am a moderate fan.

Although, he does seem to be growing on me.

I like some of his contemporaries more than Rothko, i.e., Kilne, Krasner, Hofman, De Kooning, Motherwell.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

How can you compare the mind blowing 'mathematical and emotional' complexity of the music of J.S. Bach to the paintings of Mark Rothko? They're not even remotely similar.

The mathematical complexity of any painting lies in the artist's conscious and intuitive use of golden sections & certain underlying geometrical grids & patterns, etc.. In that sense, Rothko's paintings aren't complex at all, but rather more zen-like in their simplified, floating rectangular shapes. 

I don't dislike his work. But I have the same problem with Rothko that I have with most of the Abstract Expressionists: which is that they couldn't even be bothered to learn the basic craft of painting! (apart from the fact that none of them learned to draw except for De Kooning & that barely). For example, brittle pieces of Jackson Pollock's 'drip' paintings continue to regular fall onto the floor of museums, where they have become a nightmare to restorers since Pollock used common non-archival acrylic house paint (on unprimed canvases). While Rothko's 1964 "Studies in Red" which used to hang at Harvard University turned blue in the 1970s, because Rothko didn't know that winsor red when painted over ultramarine blue turns fugitive and disappears. The paintings were subsequently sent into storage in 1979 under the false claim that the original colors had merely "faded". But I gather they've now been repainted in red by restorers using some kind of digital technology (and look awful). 

I wonder what these poorly crafted works will look like in 200-300 years or even sooner, like maybe 50-100 years from now? I imagine many of them will be rotting in storage.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

yea, I'm a big fan. I grew up in Houston and me and my friends used to go to the art museum and the Rothko Chappel down by the Contemporary Arts Museum 

I always liked standing in front of his paintings. You should see the Rothko Chappel. Really big and really purple


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## feierlich (3 mo ago)

I visited MoMA a couple of months back, and his paintings filled me with awe. Apart from visiting Rothko Chapel, I strongly recommend Morton Feldman's piece _Rothko Chapel_.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Nate Miller said:


> yea, I'm a big fan. I grew up in Houston and me and my friends used to go to the art museum and the Rothko Chappel down by the Contemporary Arts Museum
> 
> I always liked standing in front of his paintings. You should see the Rothko Chappel. Really big and really purple


I spent a month in Houston one summer weekend, and I never want to go back. But still, I would like to see the chapel. It's hard to imagine how it really looks from reproductions.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> I spent a month in Houston one summer weekend, and I never want to go back. But still, I would like to see the chapel. It's hard to imagine how it really looks from reproductions.


yea, I got out of that city as soon as I was old enough to steal a car and I never went back either. 

the chapel is pretty cool, though. its like a meditation area and the paintings are tall. really tall. 
they have little black round cushions you can take and sit wherever you want. really peaceful and quiet


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Josquin13 said:


> How can you compare the mind blowing 'mathematical and emotional' complexity of the music of J.S. Bach to the paintings of Mark Rothko? They're not even remotely similar.
> 
> But I have the same problem with Rothko that I have with most of the Abstract Expressionists: which is that they couldn't even be bothered to learn the basic craft of painting! (apart from the fact that none of them learned to draw except for De Kooning & that barely). For example, brittle pieces of Jackson Pollock's 'drip' paintings continue to regular fall onto the floor of museums, where they have become a nightmare to restorers since Pollock used common non-archival acrylic house paint (on unprimed canvases).


I can't comment on how physically durable Pollock's drip paintings are/were. I simply don't know but do know that art history is filled with masterpieces that are a restorer's nightmare. But firstly Pollock's drip painting only represent one period in his art so it is perhaps not fair to say they are typical of his work overall. But they are iconic. Secondly, though, I wonder what leads you to think he could not draw? There are many drawings of his that suggest that he could and he went through a period (before the drip period) when he started with a figurative painting (of his drafting) and made it abstract, so as to keep and accentuate the movement and energy.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Josquin13 said:


> How can you compare the mind blowing 'mathematical and emotional' complexity of the music of J.S. Bach to the paintings of Mark Rothko? They're not even remotely similar.
> 
> The mathematical complexity of any painting lies in the artist's conscious and intuitive use of golden sections & certain underlying geometrical grids & patterns, etc.. In that sense, Rothko's paintings aren't complex at all, but rather more zen-like in their simplified, floating rectangular shapes.
> 
> ...


Uh, well OK then.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

I like a number of abstract expressionists, including (especially) Pollock, but I do not respond to Rothko.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

OldHoosierdude quotes my post & writes, “Uh, well OK then.”

Captainnumber 36 originally wrote “J.S. Bach” in his or her opening post, and then after I’d posted changed the name to “Vivaldi” without acknowledging the change or my post. Which now makes the first part of my post look odd, as if I’d misread the opening post; hence, your response, I assume.



Enthusiast said:


> Secondly, though, I wonder what leads you to think he [Jackson Pollock] could not draw? There are many drawings of his that suggest that he could and he went through a period (before the drip period) when he started with a figurative painting (of his drafting) and made it abstract, so as to keep and accentuate the movement and energy.


Hi Enthusiast,

In regards to drawing, there is a time honored body of knowledge and set of skills that was taught & passed down by artists from generation to generation starting with the great masters of the Renaissance all the way down to the ateliers of the late 19th century: which constitutes what drawing is, & what it means to be a highly skilled draughtsman (or person). It’s a tradition that was based on an artist’s ability to expertly handle gesture or croquis, point & line, the modeling of three-dimensional form or chiaroscuro, anatomy & proportion, linear perspective, granet, hatching, estompé, etc. Throughout these centuries, drawing was considered “the probity of art”—to quote from the French artist, Ingres, & an essential part of every artist’s formal training.

However, in the 20th century, this great tradition gradually became more & more watered down, & was eventually thrown out by most artists (particularly Marcel Duchamp & his followers), who no longer considered drawing to be an important or necessary pursuit in art. In fact, very few 20th century artists could draw or draw well by any standard set by the past. Which meant that eventually drawing was no longer taught well in most art schools.

One example of how this tradition became discarded in favor of 'modern art' is Henri Matisse, who was kicked out of William Bouguereau’s atelier at the Academie Julian in Paris for having no discernible talent. In other words, Bouguereau, who was a great draughtsman himself, considered Matisse to have no ability to draw & thought he was unteachable. Yet, Matisse wanted to be an artist so he found another way, one that didn’t require being able to draw well.

Apart from a small group of artists that continued to work representationally in the 20th century—such John Koch, R.H. Ives Gammell, Odd Nerdrum, Claudio Bravo, Pietro Annigoni, Paul Cadmus, etc., the only 20th century artists that I have respect for in this regard are Salvador Dali, Ernst Fuchs, & to a lesser extent, Pablo Picasso (whose precocious drawing abilities have nevertheless been exaggerated—first by Picasso himself, & then by a string of modern critics who knew little to nothing about drawing.)

In regards to Jackson Pollock & the abstract expressionists—since you ask, the art schools in the United States had already begun to fail by the 1930s, 40s, & 50s (with only a few exceptions, & the situation would get even worse by the 1960s & 70s). Therefore these schools could no longer be relied upon to teach drawing adequately. So, not surprisingly, none of the abstract expressionists learned to draw well. With the one exception being Willem de Kooning, who began his art education in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he received some degree of traditional formal training.

On the other hand, it should be pointed out that had this great tradition of drawing still been intact & adequately taught in art schools throughout the 20th century, the abstract expressionists would not likely have gone in the direction they did, & we wouldn’t have abstract painting as it exists today.

I should also mention that it is sometimes put forth by art historians that the artists of the 20th century could draw and paint in the traditional sense, but chose not to do so, in order to follow their modern muse. This notion is mostly untrue, & partly derives from a statement made by Pablo Picasso, who once claimed that as a child he could draw like Raphael, but that it took him years to learn to draw like a child. Which is either a bold bit of self promotion to commercially justify Picasso’s ‘clownish’ (in my opinion) late work, or an ignorant comment that stems from Picasso's outsized ego & inability to comprehend what it actually takes to be a draughtsman of Raphael’s stature (or how exceedingly rare that is in art history). Indeed Raphael & his art served as the guiding light & primary model to generations of artists throughout the 17th, 18th, & 19th centuries. While, in reality, Picasso couldn’t draw remotely as well as Raphael at any time in his life, let alone as a child. However, modern critics believed Picasso’s lie, & got behind it, & somehow this became a pervasive notion that was applied to 20th century artists in general, i.e., that they could draw, but chose not to. 

On the other hand, I wouldn’t claim that the young Picasso had no draughtsman skills, either. Some of his early drawings do show real talent and a certain degree of accomplishment. However, one of Picasso’s youthful drawings that is often cited as a prime example of his precocious ability, is, in reality, no more than a copy of a drawing plate by the French artist Charles Bargue (which has been missed by art historians). In other words, Bargue was the real master draughtsman here, not the young Picasso, who was merely making a copy of a Barque plate: which is what the plates were intended for. Granted, there are one or two other works that show the young Picasso to be reasonably skilled at drawing; however, these drawings are now thought to have been accomplished with the help of Picasso’s father, who wanted his young son to take the traditional route.

Back to Pollock: While I don’t find the following drawing by Pollock to be completely lacking in drawing talent, it is nevertheless amateurish, and shows very little knowledge of the tradition of drawing. I suspect it may be a poor attempt to copy an old master drawing, but it’s so bad that I can neither recollect nor recognize which drawing Pollock was trying to copy,

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/485604

With that said, however, I admit that Pollock could draw better than Mark Rothko.

Which I'll grant you misses the point, since the ability to draw isn’t what abstract expressionism was about or what they are known for. Rather, they were doing something very different in their art. Hence, it’s kind of pointless for me to judge their inability to draw.

But it’s not irrelevant, either; at least not in regards to what is happening in art today, where there has been a huge shift & reaction against the squandering of these older traditions by a whole generation of young, very gifted artists. The only problem is that this new generation has yet decide what they’re going to do with all their hard earned skills and technique, as few seem to be thinking allegorically yet. However, they are already being talked about in certain quarters as the emerging ‘avant-garde’ today.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Josquin:

I apologize for the change, but really Vivaldi and Bach are interchangeable for me in that position. The Baroque era in general makes me think of Math and so does Rothko. That's the connection I'm making.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Deleted comment.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

For you Mark Rothko trivia fans, I have an old book titled The Graphic Bible by Lewis Browne, with illustrations by a young Mark Rothko! No stripes or rectangles here.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> For you Mark Rothko trivia fans, I have an old book titled The Graphic Bible by Lewis Browne, with illustrations by a young Mark Rothko! No stripes or rectangles here.


Interesting. I think I found what is an early work by him on a bing search! It was interesting and unique. But I have closed my mind, and Karla Ryan is my favorite painter, who I made another thread about here, and explosions in the sky is my current favorite musical act.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Karla Ryan is my favorite painter, who I made another thread here.


I'm sure her paintings are more affordable than an original Rothko.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> I'm sure her paintings are more affordable than an original Rothko.


And more beauiful imo.


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