Feeling Number 14, 1960

I have a penchant for abstractism and I am excited about artists that continue to reinterpret the definition and use of traditional oil painting as an art form. Art is no longer purely subject oriented. Abstractism and expressionism combined is an exciting hybrid of the two styles that allows a greater freedom and range for the artist with the aim of inspiring connectivity. As a newbie to the art world, I appreciate the various styles and genres that are available to me to draw insight and inspiration from. I love Mark Rothko's famous color field work because of its primitive style. The use of simple line and color draws me in and invokes a depth of emotion and intensity that is imaginatively cataclysmic.

The "Number 14, 1960" purple and red painting is one of my favorite works from Rothko displayed in the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art. It was painted in a series and during Rothko's last decade of art. Its a simple, constructed duo of vibrant rectangles framed with a deep, undefined border. There is a striking contrast between the violent, passionate red and sensual purples in this piece. They are blended with fast strokes of complexity. Rothko layers strokes of oil paint on top of each other over an uncoated canvas to create the effect of a depth in frame and an illusion of being engulfed. The colors overlap. I am captivated. The first thing I notice about his painting is how it makes me feel. His piece invokes a deep, sensuality and juxtaposes that with anxiety. It inspires in me a sense of nostalgia and tragedy. What appeared first glance to be a simple arrangement of primitive color blocks is, upon closer inspection, a carefully concocted blend of proportionate placement that influences the mood and depth of the painting.

Rothko inspires his viewers to enter the realm of his color field and engage with the painting. He entices me with the large size of his canvas to take a brief departure from figure, fact and reason and enter the world of the emotional. He has explained his deliberate choice in larger sized canvases to be influenced by his desire to establish a deeper intimacy with his viewer. Rothko says "The reason I paint them, however . . . is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command"

A Latvian born American painter, Rothko moved to New York in 1923 and began an intitially reluctant interest in painting from watching students sketching a model. He was originally interested in theatre and acting however did not have the kind of commercial appearance that made for a successful acting career so he enrolled in the New School of Design NY and studied at the Art Students League of New York under still life artist Max Weber who taught him that art was "a tool of emotional and religious expression".

I notice the underlying emotive tones of his work and I tout him a master of rebellion for creating a new form of abstractism. His color field work uses no symbology or form yet represents abstract expressionism at its best; different, non-conformative and powerfully stimulating to the imagination. It is what you cannot see in his works that makes the strongest impact. His paintings appear about externally introverted but are internally extroverted. Rothko has himself quoted that, "there is no such thing as good painting about nothing". He was very concerned with controlling the semiotics of his works and purposely allowed his viewers through lack of explanation of his works a freedom to perceive and interpret his art in their own way. There are no titles in his color field paintings other than the numbers of the paint colors he used to paint them.

When I look at a Rothko work I am engulfed with sensation. It is a rare artist that can promote personal nostalgia in a person with color. He achieves the intimacy he talks so strongly about. He also communicates through color his emotional life as an artist, which is represented in the themes of violence and obsession in his deliberate choice in color. I think he is brilliant in his execution. Through color hue, he has a way of evoking the memories of times that we have had unmanageable emotions. "Number 14, 1960" was something I have felt before and through experiencing it I remembered how it felt it again.

http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/intro1.shtm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism