Filena Arcia Task #4

Rothko
White Center (Yellow, Pink & Lavender on Rose)
1950

Rothko
Violet, Green and Red
1951

Rothko
Number 8
1952

When I first viewed the images from the “After Colour” exhibition the images and the title itself made me think of movements that were strongly based in colour such as the Colour Field Movement. The movement was characterized mostly by large fields of solid flat colour spread or stained onto a canvas and the emphasis was not about gesture or brushstrokes or action but more about overall consistency of form and process. I began to think about how images from this time would look if all the colour was taken out of them.   How would it change the affect on the viewer? I decided to choose some painting created by Rothko to experiment on. I choose Rothko so several reasons. He was known as one of the main painters of that movement but yet he rejected being attached to it and he also had an interesting relationship with colour or how colour should function. In a quote by him you can see how some of the colour field ideas conflicted with his own:

I am not an abstractionist ... I am not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. ... I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on — and the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures show that I communicate those basic human emotions. ... The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point!

It is interesting to note that while he doesn’t want us to be moved or focus only on the colour relationship some of his titles for the most part point out this colour relationship. I chose a couple of his paintings and change the colours to black and white in photoshop and I then used the sliders to create more of an emphasis on texture and the “hand of the artist” which goes against the movement. I did this to see how it would change the reading of the image. I also did it because I found that removing the colour helped the viewer to not be distracted by it and possibly see what Rothko was trying to get people to see. Human emotion created not by colour relationships. With out the colour does the painting still have the same impact? I believe that without the colour they do still have a sense of tragedy and doom and maybe even more so however I do think that our society is very rooted in colour as a method of generating emotion especially when we think of colour therapy and because of this we may not know what emotional response to have with the painting at first and may need to spend more time with each one to differentiate the different emotions we feel.