Bodies of Light - Rothko

Art in America, July, 1999 by Sean Scully

As we enter the period of the darker paintings, this feeling changes. The canvases become more prescribing and controlling in relation to the space that they occupy. The stark and ashen images mirror Rothko's soul, which at the time was troubled and defensive. We are limited, controlled by the artist--forced to stand close to feel the paintings' warmth. Rothko no longer permits us to move where and how we want, bathing in his illuminated space.

Five years later, in his final move, Rothko did something crucial. Having already reduced his color to gray and black, he now gave up the narrow breathing band that followed the perimeter of his paintings and kept the actors on their stage. His tremulous relationship with the edge had once held Rothko in his own world and had given his figures space to breathe and act. But now that mysterious tension was broken, and the border became thinner and hard-edged. In Untitled [Black on Gray], 1969, the balance between sensuousness and austerity is broken in favor of austerity, and drama, which carries possibility, is replaced by the desolation of a single horizon line that extends off each side of the painting. Rothko was unable any longer to maintain the rapport between tragedy and hope. In effect, he had slipped off his own artistic stage.

Friedrich Nietzsche's great book The Birth of Tragedy had a profound effect on Rothko. Nietzsche's idea that the artist has the power to transform tragedy into beauty is very close to Rothko's central truth and the primary reason for the exceptional grace in his work. For how could Nietzsche's idea be physically demonstrated, unless the artist was prepared to push tragedy and beauty to their extremes?

Rothko's life ended in suicide in 1970. In 1889, Nietzsche had stood kissing a horse in the street, 11 years before he was to die insane. But by the time these artists met their sad ends, their gifts had been made and given.

In my view, a great abstract painting offers one the possibility to travel without having to endure the tedium of a journey. Rothko created many great paintings. Now the question can be put: Does art like his make a difference to the world, as he would have wished? Or to phrase it another way, Would the world be less without it? The answer to both questions is very simple: yes.

Sean Scully's most recent New York exhibitions were held this spring at Danese Gallery and Galerie Lelong. A selection of his work is currently on view at the South London Gallery, London [through Aug. 1].