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There are moments in art galleries when all the theoretical apparatus one has accumulated (formalist analysis, semiotic frameworks, the entire vocabulary of art history) quietly packs its bags and leaves. My first encounter with Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals in 2000 was one such moment. Entering the Tate’s Rothko Room, I executed the standard slow walk intended to signal thoughtfulness, sat on the central bench, and promptly burst into tears. This was not the dignified, misty-eyed response appropriate to major artworks, but something significantly less controlled. Rothko would, no doubt, have regarded it as a success.
His ability to elicit such responses is especially impressive considering that his paintings are often described (accurately) as large rectangles of colour. Rothko, of course, rejected the term Abstract Expressionism, insisting instead that he aimed to express ‘basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom.’¹ It is a shortlist notably devoid of levity. The Seagram Murals, with their layered maroons and ominous reds, demonstrate his preference for emotional gravity. Their hazy edges and velvety surfaces create a sense of depth that is almost spatial, despite the enthusiastic lack of identifiable objects. The display environment completes the effect. Rothko demanded a room without windows, dim lighting, and a general atmosphere of solemnity- conditions Tate Modern provided with admirable devotion. The space felt halfway between a chapel and a bunker. Conversations drop to whispers, though no one has asked for this. The paintings generate their own etiquette. One does not merely view them; one submits to them, as though they are conducting a psychological evaluation for which one has not revised. Rothko’s influences illuminate this intensity. His admiration for Mozart (whose music he felt combined restraint with emotional clarity) mirrors the pared-back elegance of his canvases.² Likewise, Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy offered him a model of art that bypasses intellect and speaks directly to the deep, inconvenient regions of feeling.³ The Seagram Murals are, in this sense, tragedies without actors: colour fields staging emotional truths with unsettling efficiency. His seriousness, however, did not preclude robust practicality. When commissioned by the Four Seasons restaurant in 1958, Rothko initially accepted the substantial fee before realising that his sombre meditations on existence would be competing with steak. After producing thirty murals—far exceeding necessity, he withdrew from the project entirely.⁴ He later explained that he hoped the works would “ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room,” a goal the restaurant’s management did not share. One might admire his consistency. The murals arrived at the Tate on 25 February 1970; hours later, Rothko was found dead in his studio. His palette had grown progressively darker in his final years, lending a certain chill to his remark: ‘One day, the black will swallow the red.’⁵ Whether this constitutes a visual prelude or simply a sombre evolution remains debated, but the emotional weight of these late works is undeniable. For all this, Rothko insisted that analysis was unnecessary, that his paintings required only presence. Sitting in that dimly lit room, one understands why. The Seagram Murals do not appeal to intellect or narrative. They simply wait, with quiet confidence, for the viewer to feel something they cannot easily explain. (Adapted from lecture delivered at NLCS Singapore, 7 Dec 2023) LINK References :
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