Mark Rothko Quotes

Quotes about:

• There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend: One day, the black will swallow the red.

  Mark Rothko

  Black, One Day, Red

  154 Copy quote

• To me art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risk.

  Mark Rothko

  Courage, Art, Adventure

  160 Copy quote

• A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience.

  Mark Rothko

  Painting

  134 Copy quote

• I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.

  Mark Rothko

  Photography, Art, Creativity

  143 Copy quote

• The most interesting painting is one that expresses more of what one thinks than of what one sees

  Mark Rothko

  Thinking, Interesting, Painting

  135 Copy quote

• There is more power in telling little than in telling all.

  Mark Rothko

  Littles

  Mark Rothko, Miguel López-Remiro (2006). “Writings on Art”, p.126, Yale University Press

  105 Copy quote

• The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions.. the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships then you miss the point.

  Mark Rothko

  Religious, Color, People

  126 Copy quote

• I am here to make you think. . . . I am not here to make pretty pictures!

  Mark Rothko

  Thinking, Make You Think, Pretty Picture

  73 Copy quote

• You think my paintings are calm, like windows in some cathedral? You should look again. I'm the most violent of all the American painters. Behind those colours there hides the final cataclysm.

  Mark Rothko

  Thinking, Finals, Looks

  89 Copy quote

• Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit.

  Mark Rothko

  Art, Anecdotes, Spirit

  Mark Rothko, Miguel López-Remiro (2006). “Writings on Art”, p.45, Yale University Press

  88 Copy quote

• Silence is so accurate.

  Mark Rothko

  Silence, Serenity, Favourite

  88 Copy quote

• If you are only moved by color relationships, you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom.

  Mark Rothko

  Color, Missing, Tragedy

  95 Copy quote

• When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet, it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know, that many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope we find them.

  Mark Rothko

  Lonely, Art, Men

  111 Copy quote

• The artist invites the spectator to take a journey within the realm of the canvas... Without taking the journey, the spectator has really missed the essential experience of the picture.

  Mark Rothko

  Artist, Journey, Essentials

  Mark Rothko, Christopher Rothko (2006). “The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art”, p.47, Yale University Press

  91 Copy quote

• The reason for my painting large canvases is that I want to be intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command.

  Mark Rothko

  Glasses, Views, Looks

  76 Copy quote

• My art is not abstract, it lives and breathes

  Mark Rothko

  Art, Breathe, Abstract

  32 Copy quote

• There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.

  Mark Rothko

  Artist, Painting

  Mark Rothko, Miguel López-Remiro (2006). “Writings on Art”, p.36, Yale University Press

  27 Copy quote

• I don't express myself in my paintings. I express my not-self.

  Mark Rothko

  Self, Expression, Painting

  22 Copy quote

• The picture must be... a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need.

  Mark Rothko

  Needs, Unexpected, Revelations

  Mark Rothko (1997). “Mark Rothko”, Stewart Tabori & Chang

  20 Copy quote

• Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.

  Mark Rothko

  Intimacy, Creation, Instant

  Mark Rothko, Miguel López-Remiro (2006). “Writings on Art”, p.59, Yale University Press

  20 Copy quote

• The progression of a painter’s work…will be toward clarity; toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer…to achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood.

  Mark Rothko

  Ideas, Obstacles, Clarity

  Mark Rothko, Diane Waldman (1978). “Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: a retrospective”, Harry N. Abrams

  53 Copy quote

• If you are moved only by the color relationships, then you miss the point.

  Mark Rothko

  Color, Missing, Moved

  34 Copy quote

• While the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done.

  Mark Rothko

  Art, Doctors, Judging

  Mark Rothko, Christopher Rothko (2006). “The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art”, p.2, Yale University Press

  32 Copy quote

• Many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow.

  Mark Rothko

  Roots, Silence, Pockets

  22 Copy quote

• Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness.

  Mark Rothko

  Art, Mean, Anecdotes

  Mark Rothko, Miguel López-Remiro (2006). “Writings on Art”, p.45, Yale University Press

  46 Copy quote

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