Mark Rothko Untitled c.1970/72 Tate
The second of the Autumn series of evening lectures put on by the Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery is this coming Tuesday, 7 October
Aspects of Art – COLOUR AND FEELING
This study of colour in art is timed to coincide with Tate Modern’s exhibition of the works of Mark Rothko, which runs from 26th September 2008 to 1st February 2009. All three artists to be considered in the course, JMW Turner, Mark Rothko and Pierre Bonnard, used colour in a powerful, expressive, yet intensely individual way.
Rothko wanted people to look at his paintings from close up, so that they filled the field of vision, to enable their scale and powerful use of colour to dominate our feelings. While many of his early works were glorious and pleasing to the eye, his palette darkened and he said later that he was “interested only in expressing the basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on …”.
Mark Rothko Mural for End Wall (Untitled) Seagram Mural 1959 National Gallery of Art, Washington
The nine canvases that comprise Tate Modern’s Rothko Room were delivered to the old Tate Gallery on the same day that the news arrived of the artist’s suicide. This was a tragic ending for an artist who wanted his paintings to be in the same gallery as Turner, whom he greatly admired.
It can truly be said that Rothko was Turner’s greatest follower.
Frank Woodgate lectures extensively for Tate Britain, Tate Modern, throughout Britain and internationally.
To find out more or to book for this lecture or the next, visit the main gallery site.
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