Untitled (woman and girl by a window) 1936 - 1937

This painting, Untitled (woman and girl by a window) was made by Mark Rothko. The colours here are very tonal, earthy, the marks are tentative, searching, and the paint application is thin, washy, almost like a fresco. There’s a real sense of interiority in this picture, a quiet domestic space with a woman and child. I think what really gets me is the mark-making around the figures, those soft blurred edges, that create such a delicate atmosphere. The red square behind the figures makes me think of Matisse, the way he flattened space with blocks of pure colour. The way the background is as important as the foreground, like they're both breathing together, existing in the same pictorial space. Rothko was so interesting, he started here and ended up there, with those big floating rectangles! You can see it, can't you? All painting is part of a conversation. It's not just about one person, it's about everyone who has ever painted, all talking to each other across time.