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Reflections on the Spiritual in Rothko

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Reflections on the Spiritual in Rothko Religion and the Arts 20 (2016) 315–335 RELIGION and the ARTS brill.com/rart Reflections on the Spiritual in Rothko Rina Arya University of Wolverhampton Abstract Much has been made of the metaphysical aspects of Mark Rothko’s abstract art, espe- cially his classic works of the 1950s and the Seagram murals. The claims for the spiritual- ity of Rothko’s work are by no means unique either to his art or to art in general. Indeed there are many people who probe cultural forms, such as art, in order to reflect on life and broader questions that can be classed as spiritual concerns. The “revelations” that Rothko’s classic works give rise to, as described by visitors and commentators alike, reflect this phenomenon, and, taking this view further, explain why secular institutions such as art galleries can be spaces for spiritual experience. Rothko presents an interest- ing case as his work can be understood as spiritual in a broadly numinous way with recourse to the concepts of the sublime and the mystical as well as reflecting aspects of his Jewish identity. The intention of this article is to discuss the different spiritual aspects of Rothko’s work, particularly of his later career, in order to argue for the coex- istence of these different strands, as well as to show the progression of his ideas. Keywords the sublime – mysticism – spirituality – abstraction – the Rothko Chapel Much has been made of the metaphysical aspects of Mark Rothko’s abstract art, especially his classic works of the 1950s and the Seagram murals, the latter having been brought to public attention by the installation of the “Rothko room” at the Tate.1 The sheer size of the canvases, the scale of forms, and 1 In early 1958 Rothko was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant on the ground floor of New York’s Seagram building. Unconvinced by the suitability of a private dining room for the contemplation of his work, Rothko withdrew from the © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/15685292-02003003 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 08:00:04AM via free access 316 arya the coloration prompt reflection on the relationship between the finite and the infinite, the significance of the rectangular voids, and the consequences of being enveloped by fields of color that intrude into the personal space of the viewer—all of which bring about meditation on the deeper questions of life that take us beyond the mundane. Anna Chave cites many instances where people have commented on the “mystical, spiritual, or religious terms of Rothko’s art”: “Rothko: Art as Religious Faith” is how Hilton Kramer headlined a review in the NewYorkTimes of the major Rothko retrospective exhibition held at the Guggenheim Museum in 1978, and a correspondent from the London Financial Times concurred that seeing the show “was like nothing so much as going to church” … Art Digest’s staff reviewer referred to “the vaporous, mystical Mark Rothko” in 1950, for instance, and John Canaday was writing in 1961 that “the weightiness of the color and hugeness of the surrounding rectangles” in Rothko’s pictures “suggest the ritual symbols of a harsh and primitive religion” [notes omitted]. chave 1 The “mystical, spiritual, or religious terms,” to use Chave’s phrase, reached their apogee in the Rothko Chapel, which was one of his final commissions, accepted in the 1960s. The commission itself was actually premised on the spir- itual effects that his abstract work gave rise to, the intention being to create a bespoke place of contemplation. The claims for the spirituality of Rothko’s work are by no means unique either to his art or to art in general. Indeed, there are many people who probe cultural forms, such as art, in order to reflect on life and broader questions that can be classed as spiritual concerns. The “rev- elations” that Rothko’s classic works give rise to, as described by visitors and commentators alike, reflect this phenomenon, and, taking this view further, explain why secular institutions such as art galleries can be spaces for spiritual experiences. Graham Howes comments on the non-specific nature of spiritu- ality that is found in contemporary art. While religious art before the Enlight- enment conveyed creedal or dogmatic beliefs about religion, for instance the incarnation of Christ displayed in Grünewald’s masterpiece The Isenheim altar- commission. In the mid-1960s, Norman Reid, the then Director of the Tate Gallery, began to discuss the possibilities for the Seagram murals. This exercise resulted in the major gift of nine murals to the Tate (in the late 1960s), where they have been displayed almost continuously, albeit in different arrangements in the “Rothko Room,” which was inaugurated in 1970. Religion and the Arts 20 (2016) 315–335 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 08:00:04AM via free access reflections on the spiritual in rothko 317 piece (c. 1512–1516), contemporary art more commonly seeks to convey ideas that are not wedded to theological beliefs but that instead create a sense of the “broadly numinous” (Howes 134). Rothko presents an interesting case as his work can be understood in a “broadly numinous” way as well as reflecting aspects of his Jewish identity. The intention of this article is to discuss the different spiritual aspects of Rothko’s work, particularly of his later career, in order to argue for the coexistence of these different strands, as well as to show the progression of his ideas. Recent commentary has argued for the Jewishness of his art, and while the recovery of the Jewish Rothko is a well-needed addition to scholarship, this should be positioned in a more inclusive understanding of spirituality that combines spiritual and aesthetic traditions. i The Jewish Rothkowitz Born into a Russian Jewish family in Dvinsk, 1903, Marcus Rothkowitz’s early experiences were marred by the constant danger that Jews lived under in the Russian Empire. His father’s outlook was socialist and antithetical to religion, but the growing oppression that Jews in the “Pale of Settlement” experienced with the eruption of violent pogroms led to his change of sentiment about reli- gion and belief. During this change Rothko’s father chose to send Marcus to a Talmud Torah school from the age of four for about five years, where he was taught to read Hebrew (Cohen-Solal 10). In 1913 the family moved to the United States where Rothko resumed his studies in a secular school and broke with his earlier period of orthodoxy. One of the defining aspects of Rothko’s iden- tity as an artist came from the different tensions, and at times incompatibility, between his Jewishness, which for him was mediated through his experiences of marginalization, exile, and displacement, and his experiences of modernism and the avant-garde in the United States.2 The intensity of his orthodox Jewish schooling set up a further contrast with the relative liberal nature of Ameri- can culture. He found a supportive environment with fellow Jewish artists, as indicated by the formation of “The Ten,”3 but he was never forthright about his Jewishness, a fact attributed to what Matthew Baigell regards as the caution and fear that many Jewish artists lived with in the 1940s (Baigell 251). 2 Aaron Rosen remarks how Rothko’s émigré background and status as a first-generation Jew would have had some bearing on his assimilation into American culture (Rosen 482). 3 The Ten was a group of nine Jewish immigrant artists that formed in 1936 who regularly exhibited together. Religion and the Arts 20 (2016) 315–335 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 08:00:04AM via free access 318 arya Looking at his oeuvre it is apparent that Rothko was more overtly drawn to Christian imagery, such as the Crucifixion and also the Pietà and the Entomb- ment, over specifically Jewish motifs. We can interpret Rothko’s use of the Crucifixion symbol in several ways—perhaps he was using the symbol generi- cally to represent tragedy, suffering, and torture, and this would certainly chime with his tendency to focus on the abstract and universal rather than the histor- ically specific. The rich art historical tradition may also have appealed, with the Crucifixion being one of the most widely used subjects of artists over the centuries, many who had in their own idiom explored its significance. His Cru- cifixion (1935) adopts compositional elements from Rembrandt’s The Lamenta- tion over the Dead Christ (1637–1638), including the placement of two crosses at the extreme left and one in the center (Anfam, Mark Rothko 30). Rothko was interested in the language of mythology, and combined ideas and themes from different mythological traditions. His interest in the Crucifixion was in the generic ideas that it communicated about sacrifice, suffering, and death, rather than the theological event in the New Testament.4 The 1935 work bears some resemblance to a crucifixion scene but in later works the theme is displayed less explicitly, through recourse to fragmentation. In Crucifix (1941–1942) there is no cross, or body, but rather a collection of fragmented or dismembered body parts. In Antigone (1941), a similar work from this time, Rothko uses the out- stretched arms (signaling a crucifixion) to separate the two top layers of form and to convey suffering. Andrea Pappas comments on how wrapping up the motif of the Crucifixion in Greek mythology is a strategy: the “classicizing image of Antigone functioned as a site of displacement, repression, or substitution for his Jewishness” (417). In representing Christian and classical Greek subjects, we can make a dis- tinction between the public persona of Rothko vis-à-vis his art and the private beliefs of the Jewish man, who did not want to convey overtly Jewish symbol- ism in his work for fear of how it would be received in his artistic milieu.
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