Untitled — Mark Rothko
The definitive journey to pictorial abstraction.
Mark Rothko’s artistic journey was a route to the genesis of Expressionism, in an almost existential quest that wanted to go further than anyone else. The Latvian-born American painter was a product of his time, a 20th century characterized by the avant-garde of its first decades and the most groundbreaking experimentation of the second third of the century.
Why did Rothko begin to move towards that characteristic abstraction that would make him famous?
In this work, from 1947, there is a differential fact in the artist’s career, since it was at that time when the theme of his painting, which until then still touched on mythological themes (from a surrealist point of view) and with figurative compositions, would change to embark on a germinal regression and an absolute exploration of color.
Like most artists of his generation, Rothko began their career very close to realist painting. Some began directly in expressionism, very much indebted to the French artists of the late 19th century. Still, the starting point of most avant-garde artists was the initial state of traditional painting.
Little by little, they all gradually left that phase behind to enter into an optimization of artistic language. The painting had to leave…
