A peaceful museum moment in London

One of my favourite museum moments happened while visiting the room dedicated entirely to Mark Rothko (1903-1970) located at the Tate Modern in London. Mark Rothko is an American Abstract Expressionist painter (along with other artists such as Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock), born at Dvinsk in Russia who immigrated with his family to the United States in 1913.

In the late 1950s, Rothko was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the fashionable Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building on Park Avenue, New York. He was very serious about his work, to the point of creating an area in his studio to match the exact dimensions of the restaurant! However, the murals were darker in mood than his previous work. The bright and intense colours of his earlier paintings shifted to maroon, dark red and black. Rothko saw these paintings as objects of contemplation, demanding the viewer’s complete absorption. He soon realised that their dark character required a very different environment and withdrew from the commission. He finally presented the series to the Tate Gallery, expressing his deep affection for England and for British artists. All nine paintings are included in this display. Perceived, as the artist intended, in reduced light and in a compact space, the subtlety of the layered surfaces slowly emerges, revealing their solemn and meditative character.

If you ever have a chance to see this room, you should take some time to immerse yourself completely in the works. Don’t hesitate to walk-up close to them, up to the point that you will see nothing else but the painting, that’s how Rothko intended us to look at them: up close and personal, as if the pictures embrace you.

Mark Rothko “Material Gestures”: Level 3, Room 3.
Tate Modern Museum, Bankside, London