Masterpiece Story: Untitled (1959) by Mark Rothko

The classic paintings

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) evolved from his early artistic career following the style of Expressionism and Surrealism. He began experimenting with organic shapes named “multiforms” in 1947, which developed into his classic paintings known as Color Field, a branch of Abstract Expressionism. Rothko’s classic paintings have a formula: two to four rectangles that seem to be suspended in the space he created on the surface. The Untitled piece, created in 1959, consists of three floating fuzzy rectangles.

The reason the painting is untitled

One may wonder why most of Mark Rothko’s abstract works do not have titles or are simply numbered, and this painting is no exception. At the beginning of 1947, the artist moved away from titles that gave any hints about the artist’s intention. It continues Rothko’s desire to communicate the meaning behind the work only through his forms and colors. It might be hard for viewers to identify one work from another by the titles, but his approach to non-distinctive titles helps them focus solely on the image itself.

The process

In his work, Rothko applied various original techniques. He also often used oil paint and turpentine, as in the case of the Untitled. He seems to have “stained” rather than painted his painting surface with many thin layers of diluted paint. Untitled, from afar, consists of four main colors—red, white, purple, and yellow. Upon close viewing, subtle color changes can be seen in each rectangular form. Onlookers can notice that some parts of the painting show the layer underneath, and other sections completely engulf the base layer. It is indeed not a solid-colored rectangle. The rough edges of the forms are blurred, and from a distance, it gives an illusion of buzzing of the colors.

The more time the viewers spend in front of the work, the more layers of paint their eyes can unveil. The visible brushstrokes that vary in tone and saturation invite them to a three-dimensional space the artist managed to produce on a flat surface. The efforts he put into the work become apparent to the viewers, and the painting can be seen in an intimate and personal light with the help of complexity he employed in this seemingly “easy-to-make” abstract artwork.

Emotions

As Mark Rothko stated many times during his career, there is no given way to experience his art. The artist welcomed visitors to approach his paintings and fully immerse themselves in the space where his vertical rectangle forms are alive.

Feelings fluctuate depending on personal circumstances, external factors, or many other moving parts of one’s life. Mark Rothko’s classic paintings reflect this most human characteristic throughout his period of classic paintings. This particular work has a set of bright and bold colors, but they do not translate as happiness or joy. The composition of the rectangular forms, different weights and sizes of the forms, and elusive movements evoke some level of nervousness and anxiousness. Like the process, the emotions the painting exudes are intricate.

Works on paper

Untitled (1959) is an oil on Whatman illustration board, a type of specially mounted watercolor paper. Rothko is famous for his use of large-scale painting on canvas, but he created numerous smaller works on paper throughout his career—the artist produced around 350 artworks on paper. He insisted that his large works be hung tightly and close to the floor in a gallery’s often enormous, white quarters to avoid his works being seen as “decorative” in 1954. But, in 1961, in an interview with Katharine Kuh, he stated, “The pictures have no size—they are exactly the right size for the idea. … Which comes first? They’re simultaneous.”

His relatively small works on paper are approximately a third of his eight-foot-tall works on canvas. However, they share the equally captivating power that pulls visitors in to investigate the colored forms as the large canvases. They are not in any way a preparatory version of his bigger paintings. The featured artwork, Untitled, is 30 in x 21 7/8 in (76.2 cm x 55.6 cm). If it were to be displayed in a normal-sized home, it would create a similar effect to showing his eight-foot-tall painting in a museum. Unfortunately, Rothko primarily relied on smaller painting surfaces close to the end of his life due to his health issues.

The featured artwork, Untitled, was recently displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, as a part of the show Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper from November 19, 2023, to March 31, 2024 (The National Gallery of Art holds one of the largest collections of Mark Rothko works, donated by The Mark Rothko Foundation). His color field paintings are eye-catching due to their size and often bold colors, but they are highly personal and almost religious or spiritual. Being vulnerable in front of the public with his emotional works might have been the artist’s way of trying to relate to and communicate with his audience. Rothko created abstract works that can be compared to the level of emotional expressions in music.