Saw both these Rothkos in person yesterday and I get it now. These were my two favorites at the exhibit, but only few of the many works which evoked profound emotion for me that I didn’t know I was capable of feeling from standing in front of big washes of color on canvas.
The one on the left, as dumb as it sounds, reminds me of very specific instances of driving down country roads surrounding my hometown in rural Pennsylvania. I don’t know if Mark ever went there. But to me it’s uncanny.
My hometown, like for many people, is rich with memories—good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant, fond, unsettling, barely intact—of driving through rolling fields at dusk with music blaring/dead silence/wind blowing/thick tension/all of the above.
The one on the right reminds me of a dream I had about a year ago. I couldn’t tell you much about it, but the feeling has stayed with me. I’m driving alone through fields and fields, a forest, twists, turns, a thick fog. My headlights shine and I come upon a family living in a sort of barn. A mother wears rags and two small children are with her. I don’t remember much else. But I remember them.
Do you ever make friends in your dreams? Do you have sincere conversations with these characters, learn things about them and yourself, thank God for the fortune of knowing them? And you wake up and realize it was all imagined?
This happens to me all the time. I don’t often think about these people I meet while sleeping. But the painting on the right reminded me of this unnamed mother and her children. I miss them.
All that to say, I had a wonderful time at the Rothko exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi yesterday. There were other pieces I could talk about, but these two were my favorites. I love the open ended-ness of his color fields. My imagination was rolling!
