Bwhahaha!!! Didn’t see that! 
Funny how his lecture is putting down modern art yet his painting of Elvis to me looks like modern art.
His art seems more about politics than great art. If you have to explain all the reasons and all your political leanings about how your art is “art” it’s probably not art. The Elvis painting certainly looks like pop art, but it was a painting of Elvis…not a square called Elvis. Not all abstract is bad, I agree. Some are quite beautiful…but I’ve always lived my life by this saying “You can sell bullshit for a dollar a pound when you can’t give the truth away.”
1 Like
He was political, but Rothko expressed his main concern like this:
"I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on — and the fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions… The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.”
1 Like
And those are the people that fall into the last line of my statement…If you walk into a room and see a square painted on a canvas and have a religious experience or weep…there’s something going on in your mind that’s not art related…
Yes it does seem to be “Pop Art”…but it was a poster…which is meant to look like a poster to sell the event.
1 Like
So, just to clarify, if a person has an emotional reaction to modern art, they’re mentally unbalanced?
How someone can not feel the the emotion on Rothkos canvases is beyond me. Especially if your a painter, its what colors do ,they evoke emotion. Its why i keep trying to produce absract expressionist type work but can never quite produce something I feel good about. But the process is wonderful and the emotions Rothko talks about i’ve felt many times when painting.
1 Like
I said “not art related”…not unbalanced.
Joe,
Exactly, the process is special. That’s why I find it so difficult to go back to purely realist painting; it feels like a construction project rather than an emotional experience, and that doesn’t work for me anymore.
I do love Rothko. Thanks for the link to that video David. That was interesting and I enjoyed it very much.
Andrea,
You and I could start the DPW Rothko fan club… but I think we (and Joe) might be the only people here to join it 
2 Likes
Don’t forget me…I am a fan of Rothko too.
1 Like
Watching the video gives me some insight as to why I am drawn to Rothko. I have an emotional response to the things I paint but don’t feel I am expressing emotions in my art. Maybe that’s my problem.
Anne,
You can be president of the British chapter. But with great power comes great responsibility 
. Can you handle that?
Andrea,
I know what you mean; I often have the same problem. Effectively conveying emotion in art seems to come naturally to some, though, for example: LINK . I love this guy’s work…
2 Likes
I might have to delegate this responsibility David or I won’t have time to paint daily! 
I can can understand the elvis painter saying the girl peeing is not art, agree. I guess I like abstract that is more based on traditional painting. A canvas painted black no don’t think so, girl peeing no, painted white canvas nope. A lot of Rothko seems like landscapes to me. Abstract figures I like, Picasso I love, he still stuck to good composition in his a lot of his work. Abstract art can have a lot of design put into it, color harmony and composition. Why do painting have to look like something like a landscape or a fruit. I guess Im tired of paiting skys and pears. Been working on geometric compositions
1 Like
Paint what you want Joe…its your life. 