Portrait (Untitled) 1939

This early, untitled portrait by Mark Rothko is an oil on canvas. The colour palette is subdued, dusky, and the paint application is fairly thin. It's like Rothko is feeling his way into the world of representation, but even here, you can see the beginnings of his signature style. Check out how the figure emerges from the background. There's a tension between flatness and depth, with the figure almost dissolving into the surrounding space. The paint handling is tentative, and Rothko seems to be searching for a way to capture the essence of his subject without getting bogged down in details. The way the figure is positioned in front of the window, almost pressed up against the picture plane, creates a sense of unease. This reminds me of some of Milton Avery’s figurative work, where the emphasis is on simplified forms and flattened perspectives, and it’s interesting to see Rothko exploring similar territory early in his career. It’s like he's already grappling with questions about the relationship between abstraction and representation that would define his later work.