Mark Rothko Exhibition

More than a quarter of the way through its showing and Mark Rothko’s exhibition is still brimming with people. Within the main room, businessmen sit dreaming away their lunch hours, an old lady quietly muses in the shaded gallery space and a collection of lovers relax languidly arm in arm, lost in the colossal canvases before them.

Hung from all four walls just above eye level, the paintings bear down upon viewers so that one feels surrounded by them in a protective circle, somehow safe and free from harm. This shielding effect is heightened by the dim lighting of the room, resembling a church’s sheltering interior and one cannot help but to feel touched by an element of the spiritual.

There is little movement; people stand as still as his paintings, taken aback, overwhelmed even, and amidst the room’s silence and all-encompassing stativity, one can still hear muffled whispers of constant discussion. From atmosphere alone therefore, it becomes clear that Rothko’s works, are not to be, and simply cannot be, passed by.

His ephemeral landscapes of oranges, reds and maroons are made up of cloudy outlines; forms devoid of concise linearity yet resembling the smudged imprint of squares and rectangles. His paint, built up layer upon layer creating an illusion of depth, is akin to the colours and fluidity of molten lava, and as one spends time with these fascinating works, more subtle shades, hazy nuances and hints of ghostly forms gently emerge from the canvas.

It is only a matter of time for instance before one begins to see small patches of white reflecting off the low light, as if Rothko were demure enough to reduce his signature to the marks of his own fingerprints. His works are warm and welcoming; appealing in their simplicity, as if each brush stoke were somehow laced with understanding and compassion.

As one enters the final exhibition room, the Rothko, previously so easy to establish a rapport with was now not so welcoming. Hung just at eye level, blacks and greys replace those warming and familiar oranges and reds, cutting the canvases definitively in two. A white surround borders the works, reducing the pictorial space into a flatter plain. There is an uncertainty here too, yet this time it is more frightening, more foreboding. What strikes me however is that the room is still full of awe-struck observers, still unable to draw themselves away.

While so much contemporary art confuses and intimidates, Rothko’s resolves and relaxes, gently tapping into our sub-conscious and sitting there, slowly mending any abrasions it might find. There are no plaques telling us what to think, nor even any obvious or tangible subject matter; and how refreshing that is, to feel that art doesn’t have to be complicated.

In a world where endless questions are left unanswered, Rothko’s works uncannily produce solutions and in their presence, one feels free from the stresses of modern life. If I were to meet Rothko, I would expect him to be very much like his works; subtle, at times a little inward, yet with a helplessly mammoth presence.