I do not like this painting nor majority of Mark Rothko’s other paintings. There is usually no subject matter and it generally lacks imagination. The painting consists of stacked rectangles of color that appear to float within the boundaries of the canvas. The only feature that seems interesting to me are the different pigments that have been used within the artwork. The tone is boring and I feel quite empty looking at it. I read multiple articles claiming that Rothko used colors that were supposed to create an illusionistic effect on the viewer's emotions or that have a sort of impact on their spirituality. Unfortunately to me, the painting is too bland and lacks actual talent and creativity. Rothko apparently used darker colors to relate to the dark times he was going through in his life. He painted rectangles that were dark red rather than bright red as he descended into different levels of depression. There is probably psychological proof that does correlate colors with emotions, I do agree that can be true. But the idea that staring at Rothko's plain colorful rectangles can evoke certain emotions I don't agree to. On the other hand, Rothko enjoyed the work he created and if he didn't he wouldn't have painted them. Therefore, I wouldn't say his work is terrible just too simplistic for me.
for my final post for the class i choose a similar piece Vir Herocius Sublimis by Barnett Newman for similar reasons. Like you have mentioned in your post I believe that the White Over Red painted by Mark Rothko lacks the imagination and the subject matter needed in order to really make it stand out to the view. the use of different pigments, rectangular shapes, fading, and other techniques were used to create this painting, but I find that it needs more of a creative element and use of imagination to captivate and elicit the viewer
ReplyDeleteI agree to me this painting lacks imagination however its not particularly displeasing to my eye. To me a painting shows a story or an image of a subject while this one is just shapes on a canvas. The white rectangle does fade into the image which looks appealing.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the simplicity of the painting and the non-perfection of the strokes makes this easy to look at. The colors chosen help with that too as they go very well together, in my opinion. Seems like there is more to it than just rectangles and colors on canvas although it may not seem that way to all.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this. This painting to me juts looks like a blob of color. It does not look like this painting had any time or thought put into it. The two colors red and white look like they were just thrown onto this campus. I do not this is pleasing to the eye. I personal dont like the blobs of red and white.
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