Editing Mark Rothko (section)

==Maturity==
Rothko separated temporarily from his wife Edith in mid-1937. They reconciled several months later, but their relationship remained tense{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=144}} and they would divorce in 1944.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=204}} On February 21, 1938, Rothko finally became a citizen of the United States. Concerned about [[antisemitism]] in America and Europe, Rothko abbreviated his name from "Markus Rothkowitz" to "Mark Rothko". The name "Roth", a common abbreviation, was still identifiably Jewish, so he settled upon "Rothko."<ref>Baal-Teshuva, p. 31.</ref><ref name="Haaretz">{{Cite news |title=This day in Jewish history / Artist Mark Rothko is found dead |language=en |work=Haaretz |url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-this-day-mark-rothko-is-found-dead-1.5231350 |access-date=March 24, 2021}}</ref>

===Inspiration from mythology===
Fearing that modern American painting had reached a conceptual dead end, Rothko was intent on exploring subjects other than urban and nature scenes. He sought subjects that would complement his growing interest in form, space, and color. The world crisis of war gave this search a sense of immediacy.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/abex/hd_abex.htm |access-date=June 28, 2022 |website=metmuseum.org |title=Abstract Expressionism &#124; Essay &#124; the Metropolitan Museum of Art &#124; Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History }}</ref> He insisted that the new subject matter have a social impact, yet be able to transcend the confines of current political symbols and values. In his essay "The [[Romantics]] Were Prompted," published in 1948, Rothko argued that the "archaic artist ... found it necessary to create a group of intermediaries, monsters, hybrids, gods and demigods,"<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Romantics Were Prompted," Mark Rothko, ''Possibilities'', No. 1, p. 84 {{!}} ''Possibilities'', No. 1, Winter 1947-48 |url=https://theoria.art-zoo.com/the-romantics-were-prompted-mark-rothko/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170424065047/http://theoria.art-zoo.com/the-romantics-were-prompted-mark-rothko/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=April 24, 2017 |access-date=February 5, 2020 |website=www.theoria.art-zoo.com |language=en}}</ref> in much the same way that modern man found intermediaries in [[Fascism]] and the [[Communist Party]]. {{citation needed|date=February 2018}} For Rothko, "without monsters and gods, art cannot enact a drama".{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=240}}

Rothko's use of [[mythology]] as a commentary on current history was not novel. Rothko, Gottlieb, and Newman read and discussed the works of [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Carl Jung]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jackson Pollock: Interviews, Articles, and Reviews. Pepe Karmel, Editor. {{!}} The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Distributed by Harry N. Abrams, 1999. P. 202. |url=https://mo.ma/2udiCWD |access-date=February 5, 2020 |website=www.moma.org |language=en}}</ref> In particular, they took interest in psychoanalytical theories concerning dreams, and archetypes of a collective unconscious. They understood mythological symbols as images, operating in a space of human consciousness, which transcends specific history and culture.{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=40–50}} Rothko later said that his artistic approach was "reformed" by his study of the "dramatic themes of myth". He allegedly stopped painting altogether in 1940, to immerse himself in reading [[James Frazer|Sir James Frazer's]] study of mythology ''[[The Golden Bough]]'', and Freud's ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]''.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=160}}

===Nietzsche's influence===
Rothko's new vision attempted to address modern man's spiritual and creative mythological requirements.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Mark Rothko: Early Years" {{!}} National Gallery of Art |url=https://www.nga.gov/features/mark-rothko/mark-rothko-early-years.html |access-date=February 6, 2020 |website=www.nga.gov |language=en}}</ref> The most crucial philosophical influence on Rothko in this period was [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]''.{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=51–57}} Nietzsche claimed that Greek tragedy served to redeem man from the terrors of mortal life. The exploration of novel topics in modern art ceased to be Rothko's goal. From this time on, his art had the goal of relieving modern man's spiritual emptiness. He believed that this emptiness resulted partly from lack of mythology,{{citation needed|date=May 2013}} which, according to Nietzsche, "The images of the myth have to be the unnoticed omnipresent demonic guardians, under whose care the young soul grows to maturity and whose signs help the man to interpret his life and struggles."<ref>Nietzsche 1872, §23</ref> Rothko believed his art could free unconscious energies, previously bound by mythological images, symbols, and rituals.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Myth-Making: Abstract Expressionist Painting From The United States {{!}} The Tate Gallery, March 10, 1992 – January 10, 1993 |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/myth-making-abstract-expressionist-painting-united-states |access-date=February 6, 2020 |website=Tate Etc. |language=en}}</ref> He considered himself a "mythmaker", and proclaimed that "the exhilarated tragic experience is for me the only source of art".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mark Rothko Paintings, Bio, Ideas |url=https://www.theartstory.org/artist/rothko-mark/ |access-date=March 24, 2021 |website=The Art Story}}</ref>

Many of his paintings in this period contrast barbaric scenes of violence with civilized passivity, using imagery drawn primarily from [[Aeschylus]]'s ''[[Oresteia]]'' trilogy. A list of Rothko's paintings from this period illustrates his use of myth: ''[[Antigone]]'', ''[[Oedipus]]'', ''The Sacrifice of [[Iphigenia]]'', ''[[Leda (mythology)|Leda]]'', ''[[Erinyes|The Furies]]'', ''Altar of [[Orpheus]]''. Rothko evokes Judeo-Christian imagery in ''Gethsemane'', ''[[The Last Supper]]'', and ''Rites of [[Lilith]]''. He also invokes Egyptian (''Room in [[Karnak]]'') and Syrian (''The Syrian Bull'') myths. Soon after World War II, Rothko believed his titles limited the larger, transcendent aims of his paintings. To allow maximum interpretation by the viewer, he stopped naming and framing his paintings, referring to them only by numbers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Important Ideas that Changed Art Forever – Abstract Expressionism |url=http://ww38.onmywall.co/important-ideas-that-changed-art-forever-abstract-expressionism/ |first=Nora |last=Wallace |website=On My Wall |date=February 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170212054902/http://onmywall.co/important-ideas-that-changed-art-forever-abstract-expressionism/ |archive-date=February 12, 2017}}</ref>

==="Mythomorphic" abstractionism===
At the root of Rothko and Gottlieb's presentation of archaic forms and symbols, illuminating modern existence had been the influence of [[Surrealism]], [[Cubism]], and [[abstract art]]. In 1936, Rothko attended two exhibitions at the [[Museum of Modern Art]], "Cubism and Abstract Art", and "Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism".{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=34}}

In 1942, following the success of shows by [[Max Ernst|Ernst]], [[Joan Miró|Miró]], [[Wolfgang Paalen]], [[Yves Tanguy|Tanguy]], and [[Salvador Dalí]], artists who had immigrated to the United States because of the war, [[Surrealism]] took New York by storm.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=181}} Rothko and his peers, [[Adolph Gottlieb|Gottlieb]] and [[Barnett Newman|Newman]], met and discussed the art and ideas of these European pioneers, as well as those of [[Piet Mondrian|Mondrian]].{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

New paintings were unveiled at a 1942 show at [[Macy's]] department store in New York City. In response to a negative review by ''[[The New York Times]]'', Rothko and Gottlieb issued a manifesto, written mainly by Rothko. Addressing the ''Times'' critic's self-professed "befuddlement" over the new work, they stated "We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth." On a more strident note, they criticized those who wanted to live surrounded by less challenging art, noting that their work necessarily "must insult anyone who is spiritually attuned to interior decoration".{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=191–42}}

Rothko viewed myth as a replenishing resource for an era of spiritual void. This belief had begun decades earlier, through his reading of [[Carl Jung]], [[T. S. Eliot]], [[James Joyce]] and [[Thomas Mann]], among other authors.{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=41}}

===Break with Surrealism===
[[File:Baptismal Scene, 1945, Mark Rothko at NGA 2023.jpg|thumb|right|''Baptismal Scene'' (1945) at the [[National Gallery of Art]] in 2023. This was Rothko's first painting to enter a museum collection, acquired by the [[Whitney Museum]] in 1946]]

On June 13, 1943, Rothko and Sachar separated again.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=170}} Rothko suffered depression following their divorce.<ref>Grange, p. 66</ref> Thinking that a change of scenery might help, Rothko returned to Portland. From there, he traveled to Berkeley, where he met artist [[Clyfford Still]], and the two began a close friendship.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=205}}{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=92–93}} Still's deeply abstract paintings would be of considerable influence on Rothko's later works. In the autumn of 1943, Rothko returned to New York. He met with noted collector and art dealer [[Peggy Guggenheim]], but she was initially reluctant to take on his artworks.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=208}} Rothko's one-person show at Guggenheim's the [[Art of This Century gallery]], in late 1945, resulted in few sales, with prices ranging from $150 to $750. The exhibit also attracted less-than-favorable reviews from critics. During this period, Rothko had been stimulated by Still's abstract landscapes of color, and his style shifted away from surrealism. Rothko's experiments in interpreting the unconscious symbolism of everyday forms had run their course. His future lay with abstraction:

{{blockquote|I insist upon the equal existence of the world engendered in the mind and the world engendered by God outside of it. If I have faltered in the use of familiar objects, it is because I refuse to mutilate their appearance for the sake of an action which they are too old to serve, or for which perhaps they had never been intended. I quarrel with surrealists and abstract art only as one quarrels with his father and mother; recognizing the inevitability and function of my roots, but insistent upon my dissent; I, being both they and an integral completely independent of them.<ref>Baal-Teshun, p. 39.</ref>}}

Rothko's masterpiece ''Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea'' (1945) illustrates his newfound propensity towards abstraction. It has been interpreted as a meditation on Rothko's courtship of his second wife, Mary Alice "Mell" Beistle, whom he met in 1944 and married in early 1945. Other readings have noted echoes of Botticelli's ''The Birth of Venus'', which Rothko saw at an "Italian Masters" loan exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1940. The painting presents, in subtle grays and browns, two human-like forms embraced in a swirling, floating atmosphere of shapes and colors. The rigid rectangular background foreshadows Rothko's later experiments in pure color. The painting was completed, not coincidentally, in the year the Second World War ended.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=212–42}}

[[File:Sacrifice, 1946, Mark Rothko at NGA.jpg|thumb|right|''Sacrifice'' (1946) at the [[National Gallery of Art]] in 2023]]

Although initially hesitant to purchase his works, Guggenheim did acquire several works following Rothko's exhibition at the Art of This Century gallery, including ''Sacrifice'' (1946), which she purchased immediately following its completion.<ref name="Sacrifice NGA label">{{Cite sign |title=Sacrifice |year=2023 |type=Museum label |publisher=[[National Gallery of Art]] |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |series=Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper |quote=Peggy Guggenheim, an influential art dealer and collector, acquired this work shortly after Rothko completed it. Guggenheim had organized an exhibition of the artist's paintings on paper and canvas at her Art of This Century gallery in New York City in early 1945. Sacrifice was later shown in several European exhibitions of Guggenheim's collection during Rothko's lifetime, making it one of the first works by Rothko to be displayed outside the United States.}}</ref> Like other works of this period, it depicted biomorphic shapes and abstract imagery in subtle tones.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Flint |first1=Lucy |title=Sacrifice |url=https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3531 |website=Guggenheim |publisher=[[Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation]] |access-date=26 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231126015420/https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3531 |archive-date=26 November 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> Guggenheim later showed this work in her European galleries, making it among the first of Rothko's paintings to be exhibited outside the United States.<ref name="Sacrifice NGA label" />

Despite the abandonment of his "Mythomorphic Abstractionism", Rothko would still be recognized by the public primarily for his surrealist works, for the remainder of the 1940s. The [[Whitney Museum]] included them in their annual exhibit of contemporary art from 1943 to 1950.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Selz |first=Peter |url=https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_2557_300062218.pdf |title=Mark Rothko |publisher=Museum of Modern Art, New York |year=1961 |pages=7}}</ref> ''Baptismal Scene'' (1945), included in the shows at the Whitney, was acquired by the museum in 1946; this was the first work of Rothko's to enter a museum collection, marking a key career milestone. ''Baptismal Scene'' depicts an abstracted baptism in watercolors against a dusky grayish brown background, with an identifiable baptismal fountain at the top of the painting.<ref name="Baptismal Scene NGA label">{{Cite sign |title=Baptismal Scene |year=2023 |type=Museum label |publisher=[[National Gallery of Art]] |location=[[Washington, D.C.]] |series=Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper |quote=In early 1946 the Whitney Museum of American Art acquired ''Baptismal Scene'', making it the first work by Rothko to enter a museum collection. This seems fitting since baptism is a rite of initiation in the Christian faith. As a purification ritual performed by full or partial immersion in water, its treatment in watercolor also feels apt. Note the blue fountain at the top of Rothko's composition.}}</ref>

==="Multiforms"===
[[File:No. 9, 1948, Mark Rothko at NGA 2023.jpg|thumb|right|''No. 9'' (1948), an example of the artist's "multiform" paintings, at the [[National Gallery of Art]] in 2023]]

In 1946, Rothko created what art critics have since termed his transitional "multiform" paintings, although Rothko never used the term himself. Several of them, including ''No. 18''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mark Rothko, No 18, 1948, Oil on canvas, Private collection |url=https://dailyrothko.tumblr.com/post/158652530985/mark-rothko-no-18-1948-oil-on-canvas-private |access-date=June 4, 2023 |website=Daily Rothko}}</ref> and ''Untitled'' (both 1948), are less transitional than fully realized. Rothko himself described these paintings as possessing a more organic structure, and as self-contained units of human expression. For him, these blurred blocks of various colors, devoid of landscape or the human figure, let alone myth and symbol, possessed their own life force. They contained a "breath of life" he found lacking in the most figurative painting of the era. They were filled with possibility, whereas his experimentation with mythological symbolism had become a tired formula. The "multiforms" brought Rothko to a realization of his signature style of rectangular regions of color, which he continued to produce for the rest of his life.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

In the middle of this crucial period of transition, Rothko had been impressed by [[Clyfford Still]]'s abstract fields of color, which were influenced in part by the landscapes of Still's native North Dakota.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=223–42}} In 1947, during a summer semester teaching at the California School of Fine Art, Rothko and Still flirted with the idea of founding their own curriculum. In 1948, Rothko, [[Robert Motherwell]], [[William Baziotes]], [[Barnett Newman]], and [[David Hare (artist)|David Hare]] founded the Subjects of the Artist School at 35 [[8th Street and St. Mark's Place|East 8th Street]]. Well-attended lectures there were open to the public, with speakers such as [[Jean Arp]], [[John Cage]], and [[Ad Reinhardt]], but the school failed financially and closed in the spring of 1949.<ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica">{{Cite web |title=Subject of the Artist {{!}} art school |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Subject-of-the-Artist |access-date=June 7, 2020 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Oxford">{{Cite book |last1=Chilvers |first1=Ian |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199239665.001.0001/acref-9780199239665-e-2640 |title=Subjects of the Artist School |last2=Glaves-Smith |first2=John |date=2009 |work=A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-923966-5 |language=en |access-date=June 7, 2020}}</ref>{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=223}}

Although the group separated later in the same year, the school was the center of a flurry of activity in contemporary art. In addition to his teaching experience, Rothko began to contribute articles to two new art publications, ''Tiger's Eye'' and ''Possibilities''. Using the forums as an opportunity to assess the current art scene, Rothko also discussed in detail his own work and [[philosophy of art]]. These articles reflect the elimination of figurative elements from his painting, and a specific interest in the new [[contingency (philosophy)|contingency]] debate launched by [[Wolfgang Paalen]]'s ''Form and Sense'' publication of 1945.<ref>Robert Motherwell published Paalen's collected essays on art from his magazine ''[[DYN (magazine)|DYN]]'', as the first number of the series. The number entitled ''Possibilities'', in which Rothko's statement was published, was the second of this series. ''Form and Sense'' was re-published in 2013 by Deborah Rosenthal, with a foreword by [[Martica Sawin]]. Wolfgang Paalen, ''Form and Sense, Meanings and Movements in Twentieth-Century Art'', New York (Arcade Publishing/Artists and Art), 2013</ref>

Rothko described his new method as "unknown adventures in an unknown space", free from "direct association with any particular, and the passion of organism". Breslin described this change of attitude as "both self and painting are now fields of possibilities – an effect conveyed ... by the creation of protean, indeterminate shapes whose multiplicity is let be."{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=378}}

In 1947, he had a first solo exhibition at the [[Betty Parsons]] Gallery (March 3 to 22).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Anfam |first=David |title=Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas, Volume 1}}</ref> In 1949, Rothko became fascinated by [[Henri Matisse]]'s ''Red Studio'', acquired by the Museum of Modern Art that year. He later credited it as another key source of inspiration for his later abstract paintings.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=283}}{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=61,112}}