Mark Rothko, 'Light Red over Black', 1957

 

My eye is not drawn to the painting itself but the title of the painting, 'Light Red Over Black'. We would automatically think that the black is on top of a red background, but Rothko has flipped this around, subverting the title just like he subverting the meaning of what it was to be an artist and what Art actually was. During this time, art was going through rapid changes, with abstract expressionism coming into full force (Rothko, Pollock). But Rothko showed that all this change was for the good, even if for him, it was short lived. 

The colour red in this painting is searing and the black struggles to fully cover this velvety border, especially at the bottom of the canvas. Unlike the black squares which have a hazy quality to their edges, the red is clear and impregnable. It is hard to figure out what this represents - the Tate has suggested a window perhaps, but if it is a window then what are we looking out into? Perhaps it is night, or perhaps the viewer is catching a glimpse into Rothko's mind. Rothko was depressed, and committed suicide at 66, cutting short his career. The sudden blue slashes in the black expanse could suggest a conflicting mind, thoughts trying to invade a bleak mindset. However this is abstract, it does not need to look like anything. Instead, the focus is on the colour and how somehow Rothko has managed to blend red and black into each other, even though they are such contrasting colours. This creates a sense of movement in the piece that can be fully appreciated once one stands back and takes it all in. It almost looks as though there is a source of wind that is blending the colours together with each glance the viewer takes. This links back to the Impressionist movement, where artists such as Monet and Renoir used brushstrokes and colour that make the viewer's eye do the blending for themselves. The more you look, the more that gap between the two panels of black begins to disappear. 

Nothing Rothko does seems to be finished. If you look closely, there seems to be another panel at the top of the painting that has not been filled in black like the other two 'windows'. Perhaps the artist thought about a panel here and sketched one out, before deciding he liked it better without. Or perhaps it can be linked to Rothko's state of mind again, so many swirling thoughts but also empty, like he truly was not working to his full potential. This piece was created in 1957, so he would have at least a decade more of painting to do before he ended his life. What we see in the late sixties (Untitled 1969 for instance) is the work where he could truly express himself and show who he really was.