Escape to myself

This was a wonderful exhibition focusing on the artist’s connection with Florence and the Renaissance fresco cycles. I’ve always felt an affinity with his work on a visceral and emotional level but I admit I have not explored his work deeply on a more intellectual way. This exhibition opened my eyes to how his work in later years was influenced by Michelangelo and Fra Angelico. It was fascinating to follow his development from Surrealism through abstraction to a unified vision.

After his early engagement with figurative art he soon developed an interest in surrealism where the influence of Miro and Kandinsky is evident. In the late 30s and 1940s he experimented with abstract floating colour fields encouraging an emotional and transcendent response in the viewer. For me these intense works sometimes provide an entrance to another, subconscious world while at others they block the viewer into a confined space. Of Michelangelo’s architecture “”[Michelangelo] achieved just the kind of feeling I’m after” Rothko observed. “He makes the viewers feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall.”

In 1950 he made his first visit to Florence discovering the fresco cycles of Fra Angelico at San Marco where he was influenced by the intense quality of the mural which encourages deep contemplation. It was from here he developed his own path to creating similar cohesive cycles of “murals” which over time lead to the creation of various large series’ like those intended for the Seagram building (now in Tate Modern) and later the chapel at Houston Texas. These seem to have their own overt spiritual context. Further influence lay in the grisaille effects provided by the architecture of Michelangelo’s Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.

These intensely ethereal works never fail to arrest me and encourage me to enter another mental space. Meditative, they float calmly in front of us taking us to another life perhaps. I encourage all lovers of Rothko’s art to visit if they can.