NO. 37/NO. 19 (SLATE BLUE AND BROWN ON PLUM)
MARK ROTHKO, 1958
Looks like somebody turned the lights down on this one. Plum. Slate blue. This big heavy bar of brown. On the other wall in this room you've got yellow, orange, red. Same basic setup. Completely different mood. And in 1958, Rothko lands the biggest commission of his life. The Four Seasons. Brand-new restaurant inside the Seagram Building. Bronze. Money. Very expensive lunch. They offer him thirty-five thousand dollars to paint the dining room. He says yes. Then he makes more than thirty paintings for a room that only needs about seven. Because Rothko isn't really thinking about decoration anymore. He wants the paintings to take over the room. A place, he called it. Not a bunch of pictures hung around a restaurant. And the place he has in mind is not relaxing. He loved this room by Michelangelo in Florence where the windows feel blocked and the walls close in. Rothko said it made you feel trapped. That's what he wanted. Then, on a boat to Europe, he tells the writer John Fischer the other part. He wants to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who eats in that room. His words. So. Restaurant decoration. Not really. Then Rothko and his wife finally go eat at the Four Seasons. He sees the room. Sees the people. Sees the whole expensive machine of it. And pulls out. Gives the money back. Keeps the paintings. This canvas isn't one of the murals. It's just what Rothko's hand was doing that same year. Going dark. Going heavy. And the murals themselves? Nobody ever ate a meal under them.