One of my favourite places in the world is the Rothko Room in the Tate Modern. The room features a few large Rothko paintings, originally intended for the Four Seasons restaurant in NY. The dark, quiet, enclosed space of the room evokes a dark and sombre mood that Rothko knew a busy restaurant never could. For me, this room offers a truly spiritual and reflective atmosphere that most art cannot.

After a friend asked me why I liked why I Rothko’s works (which she thought were uninspired blobs of paint on a canvas - a fair criticism), I came to realise that Rothko represented one incarnation in what I love most in art: the use of colour to convey emotion.

So for me, Rothko represented a logical step in the line of artists that I most enjoy, from JMW Turner, to the Impressionists, to Rothko, and to James Turrell.

JMW Turner

Turner is my favourite artist. I have seen his works at countless galleries in 4 continents (and eventually hope to make it all 7).

Turner transformed what it meant to paint, especially landscapes, in the 19th century. Turner moved away from the detailed replication of the Neoclassical movement and instead placed himself firmly at the head of Romanticism. Turner used free-flowing colours to paint stunning landscapes that were classically familiar but used a lack of precise structure to convey emotion.

In The Fighting Temeraire, the vivid sunset makes you feel the sense of melancholy and decline in British naval power as the old warship is tugged away by a newer steam-powered tug. In Snow Storm, the swirling greys, whites and blacks make you feel the power of the storm and the sense of helplessness of the boat that is trapped within this ferocity. I haven’t been disappointed by any of Turner’s works and they each fill me with a sense of wonder and amazement.

It’s no surprise that Turner was a major influence on Rothko.

Impressionists

Turner’s role at the vanguard of modernism was carried on by the Impressionists. People like Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, and Camille Pissarro carried on this focus on light and colour. In fact, for many impressionists, depicting light as it changed throughout the day, and the year, was one of their most important goals.

A great example of this (and one of my favourite examples of impressionism) is Monet’s Stacks of Wheat paintings. In these paintings, Monet uses the varying light across seasons, together with the structure of the wheat stacks, to convey emotions such as resistance/survival (in Winter) and warmth/happiness (in End of Summer).

Rothko

This is where Rothko comes in. Rothko took the use of colour to the next level.

When you read about Rothko, the most fascinating thing about the abstract expressionist painter was that he was not interested in colour at all. Instead, Rothko was fascinated by emotions. About his own work, Rothko said that:

“If you are moved by color relationships, you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom.”

By deconstructing his paintings into a few base colours, that he manipulated through layering, imprecise shapes and scale, Rothko was able to convey emotion in an incredible way. I have had many friends who meditate in front of Rothkos or have broken down and cried when seeing his work. Even during his time, Rothko understood his ability to convey this emotion and the impact that it had on people.

“The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions,” Rothko said. “The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them.”

We are all emotionally complex and Rothko was better able to convey this emotional complexity than any other artist. In an interview, Rothko’s son stated that:

“If we read my father’s colours as expressions of emotion, then we can see the many layers of colour is basically … an expression of the emotional complexity in our lives because we’re seldom either happy or sad

This is why I love Rothko. It’s not just about painting colour. It’s about the emotions that he spent his life trying to convey. It’s about the same emotions that led his paintings to become darker and darker until, unfortunately, he took his own life.

James Turrell

If you like art and haven’t been to see a James Turrell work, you have to add this to the top of your to-do list. Turrell uses actual light (from lamps, the sky etc.) to create immersive installations that test the limits of human perception.

Turrell extends the use of colour and light to convey emotion. For Turrell, the idea of feeling the presence and wonderment of a space are just as important. In his own words:

“My work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing. I’m also interested in the sense of presence of space; that is space where you feel a presence, almost an entity — that physical feeling and power that space can give.”

“What is important to me is to create an experience of wordless thought.”

Turrell’s work is so spiritual and wondrous that one of his works is literally in a memorial chapel, where the lights of the work interact with the setting sun in Berlin summers.

Most interestingly for me, Turrell was inspired by both JMW Turner and Rothko. The same MIT Technology article review also described Turrell’s works as:

“…a painting by Mark Rothko transformed into a movie”

Think about colour as emotion

So the next time you see a Rothko and think his work is garbage or meaningless, think about the emotions that he is trying to convey. Think about the works of the artists that came before and after Rothko , from Turner, to the Impressionists, to Turrell. And more than anything, think about me and let me know what you think about Rothko!