Page 324 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
was defined by Rothko as the creation of “inner light.”44 Gage also states that in this par- ticular respect Rothko was almost alone among his contemporaries.45 Our view is that the above mentioned process of creating fine tones in depth by the layering of several paints is a phenomenon in Rothko’s painting whose origin is at least in part Byzantine. In Byzantine painting, the gradual application of the various fine tones of colour, as well as the concept of inner light, are standard features, and thus, Rothko’s definition of “in- ner light” in his own work might easily be a borrowed one – or one that owes to a Byz- antine influence.
When we consider Greenberg’s reference to a relationship between Rothko and Byz- antine art, as well as his earlier cited observations of the similarity between Byzantine and Modern art, Rothko’s Jewish upbringing in Orthodox Russia,46 his later fondness of Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, and the fact that he read Dostoevsky, arguably the most prominent of all Christian Orthodox writers of the more recent past, and then look at The Rothko Chapel47 shown in image 71, or The Rothko Room in the Tate Gallery (image 74), we begin to understand just how necessary a particularly theological reading of Rothko’s aesthetics is.
Undoubtedly, as a prerequisite for a well-grounded theological reading, on the one hand, we must not drift away from the visuality, and even tactility, of Rothko’s work, while on the other, we are required to gradually distance ourselves from its purely for- mal aspects. Therefore, our main hypothesis in the following part of this chapter is that within such a process of the observer’s disengagement with the strictly formal aspects, the parallel between Rothko’s classic works and the numinous effect in examples of Late Byzantine painting, acquires a distinct theological dimension. This theological dimen- sion to a notable extent corresponds to the mysticism of the Orthodox Christian theolo- gy, as well as to the hesychast experience in particular.
In order to proceed and expand on these phenomena, in respect to methodology, be- sides the comparative analyses of composition, form, and colour (of examples of Late Byzantine painting and those of Rothko’s classic style), as well as visual demonstrations, our overall approach in this chapter could be defined as the approach of theological aes-
44 John Gage, “Rothko: Color as Subject,” in Mark Rothko, ed. Jeffrey Weiss (Washington: National Gallery of Art, in association with New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 249.
45 Ibid.
46 It is noted in Rothko’s biography that during his childhood in Russia, he attended cheder (the Hebrew school at a synagogue). See the chronology of Rothko’s life compiled by Jessica Stewart and included in: Jeffrey Weiss, et al. Mark Rothko (Washington: National Gallery of Art, in association with New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 333.
47 Rothko committed suicide on the 25th of February 1970, and one year later, on the 27th of February 1971, the Roth- ko Chapel was dedicated as an interdenominational chapel.
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