Page 315 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter VI
suppressed and almost persecuted existence of the Rothkowitz family during their years in Russia, but also the experience of migration, the subsequent years of adapting and learning, and of course the war, were collectively transformed by Rothko from memory into blurred forms, and then from blurred forms into a present experience (image 10), and then, in the classic period, transubstantiated into pure acts of the will (i.e. images 13 and 14).19
Also, the immense influence that one of Rothko’s favorite books, Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, had on Rothko’s painting, can clearly be discerned in view of Rothko’s above described process of objectifying his classic expression. For example, an overt connec- tion to that process can be observed in Nietzsche’s following words:
“We prefer to say that all of that opposition which Schopenhauer uses as criteria in order to evaluate the arts, the opposition between the subjective and the objective, is generally foreign to aesthetics, as the subject – the person that desires and attempts their egoistical aims, can only be regarded as the opposition to art and not its source. In as much however the subject is the artist, he has already become liberated from his person- al desire, and has become the medium, through which the only truly existent subject celebrates its liberation into phenomenality.”20
Accordingly, in order to understand Rothko on a deeper level, in order to comprehend the classic period of his art as an objectification of a primarily spiritual experience, we must engage in deeper and more demanding interpretations of his work. We must cer- tainly forget labels such as “abstraction” and “Abstract Expressionism.” Besides, in an interview with Selden Rodman, Rothko himself stated: “You might as well get one thing straight. I’m not an abstractionist... I’m not interested in the relationship of color to form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions – tragedy, ec- stasy, doom, and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when con-
19 For example, Jeffrey Weiss points out that “in a manner of speaking, Rothko’s paintings can resemble acts of the will, objects that have sprung forth fully formed.” See introduction written by Jeffrey Weiss in: Jeffrey Weiss, et al. Mark Rothko (Washington: National Gallery of Art, in association with New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 10. Here, Weiss argues that the profound devotion to grand themes such as tragedy, ecstasy, and death, is alluded to in Rothko’s early use of figures and symbols.
20 Our translation of the following excerpt in Greek: «Προτιμάμε να πούμε ότι όλη αυτή η αντίθεση που ο Σοπεν- χάουερ χρησιμοποιεί σαν μέτρο για να αξιολογήσει τις τέχνες, η αντίθεση του υποκειμενικού και του αντικειμενικού, είναι γενικώς ξένη προς την αισθητική, αφού το υποκείμενο, το άτομο που βούλεται και που επιδιώκει τους εγωιστι- κούς σκοπούς του, μόνο ως αντίπαλος της τέχνης μπορεί να εννοηθεί και όχι ως πηγή της. Στο μέτρο όμως που το υποκείμενο είναι καλλιτέχνης, έχει λυτρωθεί ήδη από την ατομική του βούληση, και έχει γίνει το μέντιουμ, μέσα από το οποίο το μοναδικό όντως υπάρχον υποκείμενο γιορτάζει τη λύτρωσή του μέσα στη φαινομενικότητα.» Φρίντριχ Νίτσε, Η Γέννηση Της Τραγωδίας: Ή Ελληνισμός και Απαισιοδοξία, μετάφραση, σχόλια: Μαρσέλλος, Χ. Εισαγωγή: Φα- ρακλάς, Γ. Επίμετρο: Τσέτσος, Μ., Όσμο, Π. («Βιβλιοπωλείον της Εστίας», 2009), 83.
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