Rothko - Permanent Exhibition, Tate Modern, London.

The Seagram Murals: A permanent exhibition originally intended for the Four Seasons Restaurant, Seagram Building, New York.

What was striking?

      The size and scale of the work (nine canvases all large up to 6m)  
A dedicated room
Simplicity in presentation
The dimmed lighting in the room, giving it a calm, sombre, contemplative,
atmosphere – evenly lighted and not too strongly.

      Canvasses were hung low to the floor – as a viewer you are visually drawn into 
the canvas. This was how the painting would have been painted.
If there are two canvasses they are hung close together
The room says ‘take me seriously’
The spacial relationships between all parts of the image
Interesting – they were v loose paintings - painterly . No precise clean lines

      Drips run in multiple directions – Rothko must have rotated the canvas whilst he
was painting to get these runs
The finish to the canvasses is quite crude, edges of the canvas painted.

The history: 

In the late 1950’s Rothko was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building, Park Avenue, NY. He set to work – big canvases to fill the huge space offered by the restaurant. In contrast to his earlier work, his mood was quite dark. The previous bright intense colours of his work had moved to maroon, dark red and black.

This series was influenced my Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library in Florence, which had a deliberately oppressive atmosphere. Making the viewer feel that they were trapped in a room where everything is bricked up.

Rothko was angry by the wealth and opulence of the Four Seasons guests and wanted to trap these ‘wealthy dinners’. Having completed his work he decided to withdraw from the commission, he chose to not accept the money.

Rothko saw these paintings as objects of contemplation – requiring the viewers’ complete absorption

“You can control the image but not the reaction to it”.

                                                                                     Rothko

He didn’t believe that the Four Seasons clientele would be capable of this and would miss the point.

Rothko held a deep affection for England and decided to shun the US opulence and donate the series to the Tate.

The Paintings:

·      A looseness to the brush strokes yet at the same time precise

·     Rectangular canvas

·      Minimal variation of colours

·      Tonal values/layers to give a depth

·      Absence of clean lines/all soft and regular

·      Lighting key

Visited Tate Modern, London. April 2015.