fuckyeahmarkrothko:

Rothko moving Untitled,1954 (seen inverted), photograph by Henry Elkan.  Picture from National Gallery of Art website.

“Alternately radiant and dark, Rothko’s art is distinguished by a rare degree of sustained concentration on pure pictorial properties such as color, surface, proportion, and scale, accompanied by the conviction that those elements could disclose the presence of a high philosophical truth. Visual elements such as luminosity, darkness, broad space, and the contrast of colors have been linked, by the artist himself as well as other commentators, to profound themes such as tragedy, ecstasy, and the sublime. Rothko, however, generally avoided explaining the content of his work, believing that the abstract image could directly represent the fundamental nature of “human drama.”“

-From National Gallery of Art website, Washington, DC