Mark Rothko - Sin título (Verde sobre morado)

Offset Lithograph Sin título (Verde sobre morado) / 1961/ Mark Rothko.
Copyright @ Kate Rothko Prizel and Christophel Rothko / VEGAP Madrid.
Published by Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional .

Although Rothko is associated with Abstract Expressionism, his painting departs from the gestural and spontaneous style of his contemporaries. In his mature work, one or more rectangular forms generally float on the surface of the background without standing out from it. The vibrant, highly diluted colors, applied in successive glazes, envelop the viewer and draw them into a new kind of spatiality beyond any measurable notion. In the 1960s, the bright, expansive colors of the previous decade gave way in his work to somber, more introspective tones—purples, grays, dark greens, and browns. In the painting at hand, the term “abstraction of the sublime,” which the critic Robert Rosenblum applied to his work, reveals its full significance.

Although he is generally associated with the generation of Abstract Expressionist painters of the New York School, Rothko very soon ceased to share with his peers the gestural and spontaneous nature of their painting. By the early 1950s, Mark Rothko had already developed a personal abstract language, which he subjected to a process of refinement and simplification over the next twenty years. His canvases—generally large in format, as he believed this created a greater sense of intimacy when viewed—are divided into several rectangular fields of color, more or less horizontal, open, and vibrant, which, bearing no relation to geometry, seem to float in an indeterminate space. The colors, applied in successive, thin glazes—as if they were watercolors rather than oil paints—never reveal the brushstrokes, reducing the texture of the painting to its bare minimum.

Rothko conceived of his works as dramas, as the depiction of a timeless tragedy. His paintings, imbued with great spiritual intensity, envelop the viewer with powerful emotion, inviting them to contemplate and meditate. Robert Rosenblum described his painting as the “abstraction of the sublime” and linked it to the Romantic tradition of the Nordic countries. According to this author, Rothko’s paintings, like those of Friedrich a century earlier, “seek the sacred in a profane world.”

Rothko believed that pure color was the best way to express emotions, and in this sense, we can draw a connection between his work and the mystical theories of abstraction developed by Kandinsky. Like Kandinsky, Rothko believed that color acted directly on the soul and was capable of evoking deep emotions in the viewer. In the early 1960s, the strong, brilliant hues of his earlier paintings—which produced a kind of expansive radiance—were replaced by somber colors, such as purples, grays, dark greens, and browns, with which Rothko created more enigmatic, even more awe-inspiring works.


In 1961, the same year Rothko painted *Green on Purple* (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum), a major exhibition of the artist’s work was held at the Museum of Modern Art—the first solo exhibition that this New York museum had ever dedicated to an artist from the New York School. Rothko, who always meticulously supervised the installation of his works—as he placed great importance on how viewers experienced them—created a very intense and dramatic presentation, with the paintings placed very close together and the lighting heavily diffused, foreshadowing the shift taking place in his work, a true reflection of the depressive state he was in. Although it is not known for certain, Gail Levin notes that *Green on Purple* was likely painted after the closing of the aforementioned exhibition and is considered one of the earliest examples of the evolution of Rothko’s painting toward more opaque and somber tones.

Jeffrey Weiss referred to the contradiction between the attraction we feel toward Rothko’s paintings—which lend themselves to prolonged contemplation—and how difficult they are to decipher. Paradoxically, Rothko always aspired to be understood, convinced that “the evolution of a painter’s work is a journey through time toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the viewer”; and for him, “achieving that clarity is simply being understood.”

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The poster measures 68 x 89 cm.

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The poster will be shipped in a rigid cardboard tube.

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