The tower in the East Wing of the National Gallery features a
handful of Rothko’s late works – a series of black-on-black paintings – and, in
the adjacent room, a short video that explains how he got there. His
early, colorful paintings of urban figures and scenes, which gave way to his
famous paintings that comprised “just” panels of color, which over time
contained fewer colors, and then ultimately just one, and then just
black. Or black on black.
A lone man sits on a bench in the tower gallery, contemplated
the work. A family walks in, talking loudly, walking back and forth and
standing in front of the man. Disregarding him. His face clenches,
but he remains still. The family moves on, in just a few moments, as of
course they would. What is there to see here, after all, in these black
paintings?
I go into the room next door to watch the
video. The man remains on the bench, calm again, seeing what he sees.
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