Seated Woman 1933

This is Mark Rothko’s ‘Seated Woman’, made with oil on canvas. It's a small-ish painting, about 66 x 56 cm. I like to imagine Rothko in the studio, the smell of the oil paint. It looks like the painting came into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I can really sympathize with what Rothko was trying to do here. The paint looks scrubbed into the canvas, especially in the green background and the muted red behind her head. Look at the blues and greens: Rothko’s gestures communicate the way we feel. I wonder what he was thinking when he made it? It's interesting to see a Rothko that's so different from his later abstract work. Artists are always in conversation, exchanging ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations.