Stop Ragging On Rothko

People love to make fun of art. After all, rich people will say that anything they own is a piece of art — down to their mass-produced, entirely normal cars — so why should we ever believe them? If so much of the art world is just money laundering between nepo baby failchildren, why should we believe that anything is art at all?

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This isn’t an uncommon line of thinking, but the end result of “actually, nothing is art” is patently absurd. So, plenty of folks revert back to the basics: Art is technical skill. But if that’s true, why aren’t Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, or even Ansel Adams held in the same esteem as Picasso? Because art isn’t about realism either. Art is emotion, it’s feeling, it’s the interaction between the work and the person seeing it. Let Buckfiddiousagain explain:

Not understanding Rothko doesn’t make his work money laundering — it means you’re the artistic equivalent of a freshly licensed 16-year-old being set in the driver’s seat of a 250 Testa Rossa. Sure, you may appreciate it if you had some prior knowledge going in, but you may just as easily be scared off from the whole concept altogether.

Don’t let Rothko hear you talking about him as a money-laundering pawn of the rich, either. You’re talking about someone who took on a commission to paint canvases for the Four Seasons, only to reneg in disgust over the thought of the ultra-wealthy seeing his work, according to Artland Magazine:

Shortly after returning from his travels, Rothko decided to have a meal at the Four Seasons restaurant with his wife to take in the space that was to house his murals. The extravagant surroundings combined with the luxurious courses proved too much for him. That very evening, he called his friend and art advisor Katherine Kuh and told her he was returning the 35,000 dollars and claiming back his paintings. He famously stated: “Anybody who will eat that kind of food for those kind of prices will never look at a painting of mine.”

Mark Rothko was an artist. Not just because he applied paint to canvas, but because he did so to convey something to the viewer — something more than “I know what a scene looks like and can reproduce it accurately.”

Congratulations, Buckfiddiousagain, on your Comment Of The Day win. Here’s a track that may not match that standard vocals-guitar-bass-drums, verse-chorus-verse-chorus format that everyone’s used to. It’s art too.

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