- Venue
- Tate Modern
- Location
- London
I've never really appreciated the experience of a Rothko painting, until today.
My partner has an interest in abstract expressionism, the last romantic movement (as he tells me). To have him there while viewing the Rothkos, for my first time, had an effect on the emotional and spiritual experience. Simply because he stood there, almost watching the paintings, so i decided to stand there with him. Never have i had a reason to devote such lengths of time to a Rothko painting.
The painting moves, something so solid and static has an energy. The 2D element does not stop Rothkos paintings from having an unlimited amount of depths. The layers dance with one another, depending on how you visually explore areas of the vast colour fields.
I entered room three of "Rothko: The Late Series" exhibition to find myself surrounded by a series of paintings executed for The Four Seasons. I was told it was the first time this collection of murals were exhibited together in the one room. They benefited from one another, emitting an atmosphere which appears to be somber at first glace. Standing as close as the Tate Modern would let me, my vision was engulfed by colour. The mood did not stay somber for long. I watched the colour field of paint, thinking that they would fail, that i would leave their prescene uninspired and still very much uninterested…
…I now consider Rothkos work to be time-based, they need your time. I gave time and was rewarded with a dance, a dance of colours, shades, tones. Shapes emerged and submerged into one another. The sequence of experiences were mine, the paths my eyes chose were what i like to consider unique. When i recall to a lecture mentioning Rothko and other Abstract Expressionists, i remember the idea of "the universal". Does this mean that my vision was encouraged to follow a certain path and that my emotionally experience was universal? Or the fact that once given time the universal aspect of our "collective unconscious" will interact with the painting in the same way ie. to experience the visual movement and depth within the physically 2D artwork?
I wouldnt normally use the word because i feel like i don't fully understand it, but sublime is definetly on the edge of my lips.
