Went to the NGA (crosspost from Tumblr, February 2024)

 

The watercolor Rothkos are actually so stunning; I went in because it was cold but also because last time I was at the National Gallery, I’d explored the eastern wing just before they completed this one. They had had his big famous ones, though.

It's a one-way exhibit because it’s meant to be explored chronologically. We begin in the 1930s when he was in the Pacific Northwest painting gorgeous scenes of forest and beaches and little towns. He’s always had an eye for color. A shed could peek out of the foliage and it was always pleasing to the eye. Just a masterful, finite set of strokes that make me think about the act of creation (I feel the same about the long, dismal process of pointillism and the ache it transmits to my own hand). Then he goes on to make these suuper epic cool religious pieces (Omen). I was just in awe. I had no idea about his experimentation with watercolor. He’d do a basic wash, then strip away some parts by scraping the water off and then he’d inscribe lines with a ballpoint pen? The results were so cool. The way he did human figure has always been unconventional— I think only one piece had a generally discernible face, and it was in that very first room. In this one, they were tall and uncanny and had lines for limbs and were stuck in their gorgeous, barren universes. So cool. I am looking for high definition images of it because I think it’d be a cool phone wallpaper. 

And then you get to the things that he’s known for. Those drenched canvases with the colorful rectangles in them. Mirrors in mirrors. I found his method so interesting, he’d do a lot of them in oil on watercolor paper and then he’d nail it to a wooden board. It resulted in extremely vibrant colors and it let him lob on loads of colors to where seemingly black portals were actually ultra-deep blues and purples upon closer inspection. I went in without my glasses so I was ultra weary of the docents as I got very close to each painting. I didn’t mean to get my whole nose into it, but I was never yelled at! What a gorgeous set of paintings. They also had a few unveiled pieces next to his huge easel, which was awesome. Also a lot of pieces still had masking tape on them!! Which to me was strangely comforting. He was commissioned all the time in his prime, there were uncharacteristically bright pieces strewn about, and then we arrive at the all those Untitled from the late 1960s.

These are what I know him for— oft referred to in frivolous internet spaces with morbid fascination: these are among the last things he painted before he killed himself. They are those gray landscapes and the nebulous deep brown skies. A visual for hopelessness. A view from the moon? The very last room had more vibrant pieces and commissions: the blues looked like sea and sky, white partitions for seafoam, bright pink squares too. Like the beginning. The last placard in the gallery made me tear up— 1933’s Bathers at the Beach behind a looming dune ("Apprehension or closeness?" The Gallery asks), compared to the 1969 Untitled ("Was this an omen?" they ask again). And my desire for connection just got to me, I guess.

Like the beginning…