Bonus: Mark Rothko,The Black Form Paintings, 1964- Alternate Scans
No 4
No 6
No 7
No 8
(I’m presenting this tonight with our collection of dark form paintings to give you a little perspective on the thought process that goes into selecting scans. It’s pretty dull stuff and for completists only!)
The black form paintings like their dark counterparts from1969, are part of the endless internet mystery that concerns how Rothko’s colors translate to the web. It’s notoriously hard to photograph Rothko paintings. Established museum catalogs will present a painting as blue instead of green or purple instead of black leaving us wondering what the true colors really are. For some very well-known Rothkos, multiple modern shots at exhibitions guide us, however, the majority of Rothkos reside in private collections and we usually only get one photo every 10 or 20 years of the rarer pieces, and even then we’re never sure how it would look to the naked eye. Compound this problem with the fact that Rothkos are, for the most part, very large. It’s impossible to distill the layers of color in an 8 by 10 foot painting when you’re viewing it at 4x5 inches.
Considering all this, the dark paintings Rothko favored mostly at the end of his life are very difficult to sort online. Rothko layered many colors to create these seemingly black and grey paintings. Purple and brown are the main undertones we see, but shades of blue, green and red also can appear in different photographs. The variation can be very entertaining for the art lover but when you’re trying to make a definitive collection,you have to choose what you can trust and basically make your best guess.
The late dark paintings of 1968-69 make some sense to us intuitively. Rothko was working more often in different mediums and his depression had grown and health was failing. In addition, he had a long career of color experimentation. We can’t know why he chose to concentrate on these dark tonal works at the end of his life, but for me, if feels appropriate and conclusive.
This doesn’t apply to the 1964 set, however. This planned set of paintings was a big change following his earlier work and even a far cry from the loose purple and green calligraphy of the Harvard Murals.
In presenting the Black Form paintings over the years I’ve run this blog, I have updated and added scans as they became available. Besides the usual intuition , I have leaned on the Tate Gallery’s article (now incomplete) for guidance. A good deal of mystery remains, but we have a better idea than we used to.
The first scan here of No 4, was popular in the early days of Daily Rothko. It’s a startling contrast to the painting we have currently and the casual observer would never know it was the same work. This more detailed look of the “ribs” is something I have seen in another scan. In addition, it’s very purple where our current scan is brown. It was difficult decision to replace it, but my thinking was that it was more accurate. First of all, I have become familiar with this look for Rothko photography where the paintings are photographed either with a flash or in a lot of direct light. This tends to bring form detail out, but when you see the paintings in person you get a much subtler sense of that exoskeleton. In addition, the new scan fit better with the other scans, one of which is also quite brown. This is not a matter of trying to create a harmonious tumblr post bit rather trying to look at these pictures in what would appear to be similar lighting. The brown hue has also been confirmed by a different scan, so I did not feel I was out of line.
The No 6 scan, is newer to me, and comes from a museum catalog. I will probably post is solo sometimes as I’m rather enchanted by the subtle purple and green overtones, lending a little bit of liquidity to the dark affair. It’s anyone’s guess if this is a more accurate version than the chosen scan, but the Tate article presented the green/grey version I am using. I felt their scholarship was a better default and certainly we’ve seen this green overtone in these paintings before. In fact, i have always thought this green-grey Rothko must be the missing Black Form painting, but I have no way of knowing so far if it was intended that way even though it’s the right look and year. At first I thought it was an alternate scan but the forms don’t seem to match our existing models.
The No 7 scan is intriguing in its detail and for the fact that there is a pronounced blue and more brush detail. I have been tempted at times to use this in the 7 slot but feel, again, that it’s like the no 4 scan above and looks lit differently and perhaps unrealistically. It’s a tough call with this one, though.
The No 8 scan here is interesting in the more pronounced red overtones, but again, I feel this is flash photography or to much direct light close on the painting.If you look at our No 8 in the working post, those reds are there but more naturally blended. I feel pretty good about this choice.
This year I will be getting newer scans that will perhaps again change our sense of some well known Rothko paintings and maybe offer us a few we’ve not yet seen online. I hope my followers a enjoy taking a moment here and there to glance at what I’ve shared as well as all the great art on the internet. Our preferred viewing methods may not be ideal, but we’re lucky to have the staggering amount of art that’s available to enrich our lives if we merely give it the time.
