Mark Rothko (1903 – 1970) is closely associated with the New York school, a circle of painters that emerged during the 1940s as a collective voice in American art. During his career spanning five decades, he created a new form of abstract art
Abstract artworks diverge from depicting recognizable scenes or objects and instead use colors, forms, and lines to create compositions that exist independently of visual references from the natural world. This movement, which gained momentum in the early 20th century, was propelled by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. These artists aimed to explore spiritual, emotional, and.
Rothko was born in Daugavpils, Latvia, into a highly educated family and was provided with a secular and political upbringing. At the age of five he went to cheder at the age of five, where he studied the Talmud. With Jews being blamed for many of the evils that befell Russia, Rothko’s early childhood was dominated by fear. The family emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1913, where Rothko went to high school in Portland, Oregon. Outstanding results enabled him to attend Yales on a scholarship but he decided to drop out two years later. He started a satirical magazine lampooning the school’s bourgeois tone and finally found his place in New York where he studied at Parsons School of Design under painter Arshile Gorky, who shared Rothko’s interest in biomorphic forms of European SurrealismSurrealism was a 20th-century philosophical, literary, and artistic movement seeking to channel the unconscious to access the imaginary. Proponents of Surrealism rejected the notion of understanding life in rational and conventional terms in favour of asserting the value of the unconscious mind, dreams, the strangely beautiful, and the uncanny. André Breton, the leader of a group of poets and artists. For Rothko, these forms would ultimately give way to the floating zones of colour over coloured grounds, the colour field paintings, for which he is best known for. Rothko spent the rest of his career exploring the limitless possibilities of layeringLayering is a fundamental technique in art that involves building up multiple layers of material to create depth, texture, and complexity in a composition. This approach is used in various art forms, including painting, drawing, digital art, and mixed media. Layering allows artists to add richness and dimension to their work, making it more dynamic and engaging. Defining Layering Layering variously sized and coloured rectangles onto fields of colour.
Towards the end of the 1960s, Mark Rothko’s health was in decline due to anxiety-related drinking habits. He survived an aneurism but continued an unhealthy lifestyle despite the doctor’s orders. To put less strain on his body, he reduced the size of his canvases and switched from oil to acrylic paint. At the age of 66, the chronically depressed artist committed suicide, leaving behind a body of work that brought him commercial and critical success during his lifetime.