VoCA was in Hamburg for a few days – a truly beautiful city. We didn’t want to leave!

Mark Rothko, Red, Orange, Tan, and Purple, 1949. Image: abstract-art.com

We took in the Mark Rothko retrospective at the Kunsthalle – click HERE – that did for us what the Barnett Newman retrospective at the Tate and the Jasper Johns retrospective in Basel both did several years ago.

It’s important to see the progression of these master painters, to see how their ideas developed along with their imagery. Rothko’s work is much more - obviously - than abstractly painted colours. It comes out of an exploration of abstraction, but also an intense investigation of shape, colour and form. There is intensive push-pull, space awareness and a traditional, almost ancient use of colour.

American painting, ca. 1840. Image: pictopia.com

These colour combinations of dusty reds and purples, pastels and terracotta blue blacks of Rothko’s famous images exist in Old Master paintings, 17th, 18th and 19th century paintings.

Mark Rothko, Red, Orange, Tan and Purple, 1954. Image: abstract-art.com

The curators had also placed a few paintings by Bonnard and other artists, including the famous Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818), by Kaspar David Friedrich, among the Rothko works.

Christian Gottlieb Schick, Bildnis der Heinrike Dannecker, 1802. Image: skd-dresden.de

Mark Rothko, No. 61 (Rust and Blue), 1953. Image: saatchi-gallery.co.uk

Interestingly, for Rothko, his images are ‘born of violence.’ We never would have though that, and in fact we still don’t. The horizontal line just seems so serene and the border that he leaves around each work seems so respectful.

For more info on Rothko, please click HERE.