Seeing Rothko

"I am interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom," - Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970) said of his paintings. "If you are moved only by their colour relationships, then you miss the point." Throughout his career, Rothko was concerned with what other people experienced when they looked at his canvases. As his work shifted from figurative imagery to luminous fields of colour, his concern expanded to the setting in which his paintings were exhibited. In a series of analytic, personal, and even poetic essays by contemporary scholars, this volume explains how Rothko's most compelling creations elicit such profound and varied responses. This volume also reproduces, for the first time, Rothko's "Scribble Book," in which he jotted down his ideas on teaching art to children, and a sketchbook, both dating to the early years of the artist's career. "Seeing Rothko" includes essays by David Antin, Dore Ashton, Thomas Crow, John Elderfield, Briony Fer, Charles Harrison, Miguel Lopez-Remiro, Sarah Rich, and Jeffrey Weiss, an introduction by Glenn Phillips, and a bibliography of Rothko's own writings.