Untitled 1947

This untitled painting by Mark Rothko is a trip, right? It's like, he's just letting the colors do the talking, laying down these blocks of blues, reds, and grays that feel both calm and intense. I find myself focusing on how Rothko builds up his surfaces. The paint isn't super thick, but you can still see the marks, the way he's dragged the brush across the canvas. Check out that blue splodge near the bottom, it's surrounded by this coral color. It's like a little universe all its own, pulling you in. It's not just about what the colors are, but how they sit next to each other, how they vibrate. It makes me think about the Color Field painters like Helen Frankenthaler who were exploring similar ideas about color and space. What Rothko did here is proof that art is just one big conversation that never really ends.