United (Blue, Yellow, Green on Red) 1954

This painting, *United (Blue, Yellow, Green on Red)*, now at the Whitney, is by Mark Rothko, and its date is unknown. What strikes me is how Rothko coaxes these hazy blocks of color into being, one next to the other, as though he’s conjuring feeling itself! I can just imagine him, moving the paint around, trying to get it just right. It's not about precision; it's about feeling. It’s like he's trying to capture something fleeting, something that’s always just out of reach. See that band of blue at the top? It’s not a sharp line, it's soft, like a memory fading. The yellow, though— that's pure emotion, almost vibrating off the canvas. It’s so luminous. Then there’s that stroke of green at the bottom, grounding the whole thing. Rothko wasn’t alone in this pursuit. Painters have always wrestled with color and form, each learning from the last, and in his own way, Rothko really changed the game. Ultimately it is the viewer who decides what the painting is about.