Landscape [recto] 

Mark Rothko created this untitled landscape with paint on board, and while the date is unknown, it likely predates his famous color field paintings. What we see here is not a straightforward depiction but rather a kind of emotional space. Painted in the US, its subdued palette and brushstrokes evoke the anxieties of the pre-war period. The influence of American modernism and the social realism of the WPA project can be felt. But it is also infused with Rothko’s personal history as a Jewish immigrant from Russia who came of age during a period of intense social and political upheaval. The image invites us to reflect on the social conditions that shape artistic production. The historian’s task is to reconstruct the artistic debates, social forces, and institutional structures that conditioned Rothko’s work, drawing on archives, period publications, and other documentary sources. The meaning of art is always contingent on its historical context.