Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended. Mark Rothko More Quotes by Mark Rothko More Quotes From Mark Rothko I will say without reservations that from my point of view there can be no abstractions. Any shape or area that has not the pulsating concreteness of real flesh and bones, its vulnerability to pleasure or pain is nothing at all. Any picture that does not provide the environment in which the breath of life can be drawn does not interest me. Mark Rothko pain real views The progression of a painter’s work…will be toward clarity; toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer…to achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood. Mark Rothko clarity obstacles ideas Look, it's my misery that I have to paint this kind of painting, it's your misery that you have to love it, and the price of the misery is thirteen hundred and fifty dollars. Mark Rothko dollars fifty looks Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness. Mark Rothko anecdotes mean art Without monsters and gods, art cannot enact a drama. Mark Rothko monsters drama art If you are moved only by the color relationships, then you miss the point. Mark Rothko moved color missing The reason for my painting large canvases is that I want to be intimate and human. Mark Rothko intimacy painting want I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate these basic human emotions. Mark Rothko down-and facts people I'm not an abstractionist... I'm not interested in relationships of colour or form or anything else. Mark Rothko not-interested colour form We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. Mark Rothko tragic timeless matter And last, it may be worthwhile trying to hang something beyond the partial wall because some of the pictures do very well in a confined space. Mark Rothko wall space trying This would be a distortion of their meaning, since the pictures are intimate and intense, and are the opposite of what is decorative; and have been painted in a scale of normal living rather than an institutional scale. Mark Rothko meaning pictures opposite living That is why we profess a spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art. Mark Rothko why primitive spiritual art
