Monday 1 December 2008

Rothko


Took myself off to see the Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern. Hard to sum up my reactions - it was too busy to really be able to relax and take it all in properly. All I can say really is seeing these paintings for real for the first time is there is certainly more to them than I thought. But what more is harder to define. He could make a landscape using two colours, one block of grey and one of black. And I do mean a landscape, the eye forces you to see the imaginary concrete in the abstract, or so it seems. (Whether it was his intention is another matter.)


But I don't want to get into art theory. They are just good to look at, good for quiet contemplation. And I love the immensity and scale of the really big ones.


Suspend thought, suspend judgement, just look.


Reading a bit about him it's clear that he was a deep thinker about what he did - but here are two relatively simple quotations which I liked:


"Pictures must be miraculous."


"Silence is so accurate."


Oh and thanks to Sui for the free ticket!

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