Untitled (bending female nude) 1933 - 1934

This is a nude by Mark Rothko. No date. I wonder what it would have been like to watch him make this figure. Look at the marks: the blue, pink, and reddish-brown paint. He must have been looking at a body, but seeing something else at the same time. He was shifting between the real and something imagined, something he felt. He’s trying to find a way to describe a form—a person bent over—but he’s also inventing. See how the nude is placed within these blue arcs, or perhaps the body is emerging from them? There’s this vaporous pink cloud too. Rothko is best known for his color field paintings, but all painters learn by drawing from life. This one feels so heartfelt, though. So much looking and responding. That's what painting is about. We’re all in conversation with each other, and it’s in the making that we discover how to see.