Mark Rothko: Infant or Caveman?

Mark Rothkowitz aka Mark Rothko is the subject of some of the most mind-numbingly retarded art criticism of all time. It's no big secret that abstract art, with its see-whatever-you-want nature, is endlessly leveraged by Bolshevists, NAMBLA, you name it. Rothko epitomizes this: People see whatever they want to see in his record-breaking $72 million paintings.

And that's the beauty of painting rectangles.



If I told you that the above image was an Indigenous American cavepainting dating from 3,000 years before Christ, you'd really have no choice but to believe me and grow sleepy as I digressed into a history of corn crops, basketweaving... goddamn... ZZZzzz.

But that's actually a Mark Rothko painting, and has a similar effect on libertine urban degenerates as does Benny Hinn on hypochondriacs.

Rothko's influence on modern aesthetics is staggering; if you're an idiot. I once had someone point to various objects throughout a mall highlighing how nearly all of them had Rothko elements. The Gap logo is a blue rectangle, and many young minorities wear brightly contrasting football jerseys with solid orange bars across the shoulders. I can't say I ever really took this person's opinion on anything seriously ever again.

Like Jackson Pollock, there's not much to say about Rothko's 'art'. He knew dark blue and dark purple went well together, and black and grey, and green and orange. Rothko was however connected with shady artworld figures throughout his career and probably had a great, quick-to-bribe, publicist.

Rothko struggled throughout his life with the "abstract" label, often denying entirely that he was part of such a movement.

At first it was pretty clear that he just painted bland rectangles intended to be hung behind a house plant, or perhaps intended for an actual painting to be mounted on. As time went on and the financial demand for his paintings surged, he seemed to extremely gradually take up the infamous abstract habit of nonsensical psychobabble; at first reluctantly accepting that his rectangle was a metaphor for Roman feminism, or some random crap like that, then ultimately becoming a home shopping network shill and 'playing along'. Previously nice looking rectangles for your dentist's office became 'artistic eras' defined by the (unspecified) struggles of his life.

Although the novel-length attempts at pyschoanalyzing Rothko's work are filled with hilarity (and Roger Kimball's "The Rape of the Masters" touches upon some of the most memorable), the one that really stands out to me is how Rothko's "eras" are placed into a typology by experts.

Rothko, literally, painted rectangles of solid color. Anyone can emulate Rothko and come up with a finished product in 5-10 minutes. So how did art critics know when Rothkos later life depression and eventual suicide were reflected in his "dark era"?

He used darker colors. No, seriously. The rectangles were often dark green instead of medium green. This was the "dark era" delving into "uncharted levels of depression". I'm sure they had a good laugh about it.

Here's a little experiment for you: Stare at your bathroom wall.

Chances are, your bathroom wall is some nice color, be it a pale blue or purple stucco or biege ceramic tiling. Now imagine that it was painted by a man who committed suicide in old age. No wait! Before you really stare at it, know before hand that this wall is... Filled with emotion. People have fainted while gazing into it. Stare at it and let your eyes water up, your spine tingle.

Quite predictably if you look at anything remotely aesthetically pleasing for this period of time KNOWING that you must pour your emotion into it; the solid color itself will begin to remind you of your deceased parent, your unheard-from ex-girlfriend, the sadness of animals having to live by devouring other animals. It's really not that complicated. The catch is that the paintings aren't evoking these emotions, you are.

Now if you're moderately literate, go paint a few rectangles (actually Rothko sort of played that niche out so try some other basic shape) and market them with gibberish about the Hussite struggle against caste-based chauvinism, then at the end say "metaphorically, of course" so that the viewer can hear whatever analogy he wanted for whatever phobia or obsession he's into . 72 million dollars await your estate.