Page 326 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
The above citation, from the chapter entitled Art as a Natural Biological Function, is one of numerous well-informed references that Rothko made to Byzantine art in his posthumously published book, entitled: The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art. In this book he also makes frequent mention of Giotto – a big inspiration throughout his entire development. Further, Rothko’s three trips to Europe (1950, 1959, 1966) were realised dur- ing the classic period of his artistic career, and during each of these trips, besides other European countries, Rothko visited Italy. In his second trip (with his wife Mell and daugh- ter Kate) he traveled to Pompeii, where he felt a deep affinity between the wall-paintings in the Villa of Mysteries and his own works.52 During the same trip he also stopped at Paestum, Rome and Tarquinia and viewed the Etruscan murals, and was also impressed in Florence by Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library and Fra Angelico’s murals in the con- vent of San Marco.53 In view of the knowledge of Byzantine art that Rothko displayed in his earlier mentioned book, and in view of the deep affinity that he felt between his work and the Pompeian paintings in the Villa of Mysteries, in the following paragraphs we shall discuss the possible influence that the Byzantine concept of inner light might have had on Rothko’s classic works.
Firstly, the transcendent in Rothko’s work can most immediately be understood as a Byzantine influence if we focus on how, in his classic pieces, the light is insinuated through colour. Still, colour is the least explored area of Rothko’s work, but also the most demanding of all. The fact that throughout his artistic development Rothko reduced his canvases to that which can conditionally be termed as absolute colour, is by no means an indication that colour was his focal concern. Rothko himself repeatedly claimed that he is “no colourist.”54
As pointed out by Gage, Max Doerner’s book entitled The Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting, with Notes and Techniques of the Old Masters (1921) had been pub- lished in an English translation in New York, in 1934, and became popular in the circle of abstract expressionists.55 Rothko’s use of traditional materials and techniques, such as the grinding of his own pigments and the use of a variety of egg tempera, is thought by
52 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), 342–349. 53 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), 346. 54 Rothko is quoted to have said this by many scholars. For example, see John Gage’s citation of Rothko’s statement in his essay entitled Rothko: Color as Subject, included in: Jeffrey Weiss, et al. Mark Rothko (Washington: National Gal-
lery of Art, in association with New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 247.
55 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.
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