Untitled (Study for Seagram Murals) [verso] 1958 - 1959

Editor: Here we have Mark Rothko’s "Untitled (Study for Seagram Murals) [verso]" from 1958-59, a drawing rendered in graphite on paper. It looks like muted shapes sketched onto a solid block of deep orange-red. What draws me is the contrast between the hard, dark horizontal lines and the hazy field of color. How do you interpret this work? Curator: What you are seeing as hard lines may actually represent something more permeable. Think of them as traces – not just marks on paper, but echoes of forms that seek to define space. Consider, for example, the vertical lines: how do they interrupt and re-form the red field, and what does that blockage imply to you? Editor: Hmm, interruption… it makes me think about how we create boundaries to feel safe, and how color plays into that. But the vertical lines are really faint. Is that on purpose? Curator: Rothko, much like an icon painter of old, uses suggestion. Consider the deep psychological weight of color. The reddish-brown hue reminds me of earth, or perhaps dried blood, primal things linked to our collective memory. Rothko believed art could tap into universal human emotions. So, the faded lines… perhaps they point towards forms losing definition. This connects it to abstract expressionism. Are the buildings themselves dissolving, fading from memory? Or perhaps even transforming into an archetype? Editor: That’s really interesting! So you see those lines not as failures, but as… symbols of loss and transformation? It’s less about what’s there and more about what’s fading away? I’m starting to see it less as just shapes on paper. Thanks for sharing! Curator: Indeed. And I find your willingness to perceive more meaning and feeling is essential to interpreting artworks. Rothko provides much in the way of interpretation. It invites continued contemplation.