pdf 1 - exhibitions international

fig 18.
Mark rothko
(1903-1970)
Untitled, 1968
acrylic on paper
mounted on hardboard
panel, overall 18 1/16 x
11 7/8 x 1 7/16 inches
(45.88 x 30.16 x 3.65)
Gift of The Mark Rothko
Foundation, Inc. NGA
1986.43.265
© 2003 Kate Rothko
Prizel & Christopher
Rothko / Artists Rights
Society (ARS),
New York
Image courtesy of the
National Gallery of
Washington
paint across the sheet after it was applied further
enriches monochromatic works, for example, Untitled,
1944/46 (cat. 30).
During this 1944 to 1946 period Rothko’s
work became more fully involved (as a primary
intention) with the process of painting itself. The
methods he used and the marks he made were first
and foremost in response to the evolution of the
image per se rather than to any a priori situation.
Dry brushstrokes of intense color are countered
by watery pools of delicate hue. Individual painted
marks likewise create forms and texture depending
upon how loaded the brush was with paint when
applied to the sheet, and how much pressure the
artist exerted when placing the marks. Worked in
both vertical and horizontal formats, the earliest of
these mid-decade sheets offer suggestions of totemic
images and underwater plant life, usually superimposed
upon layered horizontal bands that by the
end of the 1940s evolved as Rothko’s major compositional
form, uninterrupted by linear incident or
mimetic shapes. Biomorphic forms with figurative
properties (as in Untitled, c. 1945, cat. 27) gave way
to swirling calligraphic totems and suggestions of
underwater life (such as Untitled, 1944/45, cat. 26).
These works present a visual parallel to aspects of
Rothko’s discussion in The Artist’s Reality of plasticity
and the importance of the viewer’s role in the
completion of a work of art. The first sentence of his
“Plasticity” chapter indicates “this book is devoted
mainly to the description of the plastic elements”
and goes on to state:
In painting, plasticity is achieved by a sensation
of movement both into the canvas
and out from the space anterior to the
surface of the canvas. Actually, the artist
invites the spectator to take a journey
within the realm of the canvas. The spectator
must move with the artist’s shapes
in and out, under and above, diagonally
and horizontally; he must curve around
spheres, pass through tunnels, glide down
inclines, at times perform an aerial feat
of flying from point to point, attracted
by some irresistible magnet across space,
entering into mysterious recesses—and,
if the painting is felicitous, do so at varying
and related intervals. This journey is
the skeleton, the framework of the idea....
Without taking the journey, the spectator
has really missed the essential experience
of the picture. 10
While Rothko refers to “canvas” in the above
paragraph, his comments equally apply to his
paintings on paper from these years, which tend to
employ multiple media although transparent watercolor
is primary among the layered hues. Opaque
watercolor touches follow sparingly, and thus function
as focal points within the fields, setting up
a rich contrast to Rothko’s magical line, directly
drawn at first in both black and color inks, but
incised as scraffito increasingly as the ideas evolve,
functioning with authority as rhythm, pattern, edge,
direction, interruption. The ambition of these middecade
watercolors expanded his approach to layering
veils of paint that eventually claimed primacy in
his work.
Central to Rothko’s paintings on paper is the
white of the sheet as it glows through the transparent
and translucent washes the artist applied in diverse
directions, using many different sizes of brushes, and
varying his hand pressure, together to create spatial
diversity within the field. Additionally, opaque white
used independently and in admixtures of various
hues adds density that transparent watercolor generally
defies. As paintings conservator Dana Cranmer
has observed, “during this period, a remarkable symbiosis
occurred between the watercolors and the oils.
Rothko approached the canvas support much as he
did the white paper support of the watercolor.” 11 As
part of his process of applying paint, Rothko increasingly
incorporated rubbing and blotting methods
that provided subtle gradations to the hues. On paper
these actions alter the manufactured surfaces of the
sheets and, thus, the ways in which they subsequently
respond to and carry the paint. Rothko rubbed or
incised with such vehemence at times that he broke
through the sheet entirely.
In early 1946, Rothko’s first exhibition since
1933 comprising solely works on paper was held at
the Mortimer Brandt Gallery in Manhattan. Eighteen
of his mid-1940s watercolors were on view,
many of which were highly enough admired to be
sold during the course of the show. Starting the
following year and for much of the rest of his life,
Rothko’s attention was more focused on canvas than
on paper. But on paper as well as on canvas, thinly
applied layers of paint create zones of color; and
works on the two substrates differ from the other
primarily because of differences in these surfaces
and the responsiveness of materials to their very different
properties, and not in his handling of them.
Size is perhaps the one major delineator—his classic
canvases reach dimensions impossible even with the
largest rolls of paper available at that time (fig. 18). 12
The importance of paper to Rothko’s oeuvre
lasted well beyond the 1940s. What have come to be
viewed as his classic compositions—two, three, or
108 the Decisive DecaDe chapter 109
fig 19.
Mark rothko
(1903-1970)
Untitled, 1969
acrylic on paper, sheet:
71 ¾ x 42 7/16 inches
(182.3 x 107.8)
Gift of The Mark Rothko
Foundation, Inc. NGA
1986.43.278
© 2003 Kate Rothko
Prizel & Christopher
Rothko / Artists Rights
Society (ARS),
New York
Image courtesy of the
National Gallery of
Washington
Rothko 2nd pages for color.indd 108-109 3/2/12 5:22 PM