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They really are different in real life if you've never seen them up close. As I understand, Rothko wanted people to stand right in front of them for awhile, to

They really are different in real life if you've never seen them up close. As I understand, Rothko wanted people to stand right in front of them for awhile, to really have them take over your whole field of view. I never really "got" them until I did that, I was always much more aligned with you. As for photo realism, have you seen the movie "Tim's Vermeer"? It's a great look at a possible technique for that and the movie is very interesting.

douche 12y ago
There was a large Rothko mural at the school I went to for undergrad, and I dated an artist who loved his work for several years. I remain unmoved. On the other hand, in one visit to the Berlin Alte Nationaegallerie, I saw paintings that I will never forget. "The Iron Rolling Mill", by Adolph Menzel, "In the Troops Quarters outside Paris," by Anton von Werner. The Blinded Samson. These are truly masterpieces, to my mind.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  The irony is they're not really photorealistic. If you took a photo of those exact scenes you wouldn't get that look, because the light has been deliberately abstracted and exaggerated. They're actually more like vintage painted Instagrams, enhanced in an unnatural way for effect. E.g. The Menzel has obvious impressionist features, especially in the background and the smoke around the ceiling. The von Werner has very weird lighting, with a source behind the viewer, or possibly off to the left, or the right, and another equally bright daylight source from the room behind. This is not to be critical - they're both very good. But they both have abstracted light and form, and neither is a pure representation of physical realism. If you want photorealism, Van Eyck pretty much nailed it in the 15th century. Which is kind of the point with art - you get more points for inventing a new visual language, not for copying an existing one. That's why Picasso is so famous - he totally killed traditional representation when he was starting out. But it was too easy and boring for him, so he moved on to other kinds of painting and drawing. Modernism is partly about violently stripping away non-essentials, so first we had Guernica, then Rothko - and now we have Jony Ive and Material trailing along at the end of the trend, before everyone rediscovers 3D about five years from now.
  - smikhanov 12y ago
    You are right about most things here, but I'll add a minor remark: "photorealism" is an established term for describing paintings that have certain characteristics of a photograph, for example, depth of focus. It's a 20th century movement and in strict cultural sense, Van Eyck is not photorealistic (he sometimes was deliberately skewing perspective or objects proportions). Instead, Gerhard Richter's "photo art" is an earlier example of photorealism, Chuck Close is a later one. The most interesting thing about photorealism is that it actually opened new ways for painting, i.e. photography was used as a tool to better understand visual perception.
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      There's a difference between (photo)realism as a goal and Photorealism as a modern school. In art history, you won't often you find someone explaining what Estes, Close and those guys from the 60s and 70s were trying to do without also seeing a nod to Van Eyck and Vermeer.
ollysb 12y ago
This is the thing with Rothko, when you see them in books they do in fact just look like coloured splodges. That was very much my opinion of his work until I saw one in the flesh in the Whitechapel Gallery for the first time. It was just one but the presence it had was hypnotic. I recently went to the Rothko Chappel in Houston, a spiritual setting really is the perfect place to experience his work (note I'm an atheist).
anigbrowl 12y ago
As the old proverb has it, De gustibus non est disputandem (in matters of taste there is no dispute, or no meaningful debate is possible). I have stood in front of many Rothkos for a long time and found them rather trite. I don't hate abstract art; I love Mondrian (though I consider his art almost representational) and am quite happy to lose track of time staring at a postcard-sized reproduction of a Jackson Pollock, never mind the real thing. I'm an enthusiastic fan of Dada and Marcel Duchamp. I think I'm pretty open-minded where art is concerned. I think Rothko's stuff is art, no question, and that he has something to say. I have nothing against Mark Rothko, but I feel quite hostile to the critical establishment that has fetishized him into the role of cultural gatekeeper, using the reaction towards his work as a sort of socio-cultural litmus test designed to maintain a certain degree of inter-cultural homogeity. In short, I feel like curators make a big deal of him, though perhaps unconsciously, as a means of keeping people out rather than inviting them in.

douche 12y ago

There was a large Rothko mural at the school I went to for undergrad, and I dated an artist who loved his work for several years. I remain unmoved. On the other hand, in one visit to the Berlin Alte Nationaegallerie, I saw paintings that I will never forget. "The Iron Rolling Mill", by Adolph Menzel, "In the Troops Quarters outside Paris," by Anton von Werner. The Blinded Samson. These are truly masterpieces, to my mind.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
The irony is they're not really photorealistic. If you took a photo of those exact scenes you wouldn't get that look, because the light has been deliberately abstracted and exaggerated. They're actually more like vintage painted Instagrams, enhanced in an unnatural way for effect. E.g. The Menzel has obvious impressionist features, especially in the background and the smoke around the ceiling. The von Werner has very weird lighting, with a source behind the viewer, or possibly off to the left, or the right, and another equally bright daylight source from the room behind. This is not to be critical - they're both very good. But they both have abstracted light and form, and neither is a pure representation of physical realism. If you want photorealism, Van Eyck pretty much nailed it in the 15th century. Which is kind of the point with art - you get more points for inventing a new visual language, not for copying an existing one. That's why Picasso is so famous - he totally killed traditional representation when he was starting out. But it was too easy and boring for him, so he moved on to other kinds of painting and drawing. Modernism is partly about violently stripping away non-essentials, so first we had Guernica, then Rothko - and now we have Jony Ive and Material trailing along at the end of the trend, before everyone rediscovers 3D about five years from now.
- smikhanov 12y ago
  You are right about most things here, but I'll add a minor remark: "photorealism" is an established term for describing paintings that have certain characteristics of a photograph, for example, depth of focus. It's a 20th century movement and in strict cultural sense, Van Eyck is not photorealistic (he sometimes was deliberately skewing perspective or objects proportions). Instead, Gerhard Richter's "photo art" is an earlier example of photorealism, Chuck Close is a later one. The most interesting thing about photorealism is that it actually opened new ways for painting, i.e. photography was used as a tool to better understand visual perception.
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    There's a difference between (photo)realism as a goal and Photorealism as a modern school. In art history, you won't often you find someone explaining what Estes, Close and those guys from the 60s and 70s were trying to do without also seeing a nod to Van Eyck and Vermeer.

ollysb 12y ago

This is the thing with Rothko, when you see them in books they do in fact just look like coloured splodges. That was very much my opinion of his work until I saw one in the flesh in the Whitechapel Gallery for the first time. It was just one but the presence it had was hypnotic. I recently went to the Rothko Chappel in Houston, a spiritual setting really is the perfect place to experience his work (note I'm an atheist).

anigbrowl 12y ago

As the old proverb has it, De gustibus non est disputandem (in matters of taste there is no dispute, or no meaningful debate is possible). I have stood in front of many Rothkos for a long time and found them rather trite. I don't hate abstract art; I love Mondrian (though I consider his art almost representational) and am quite happy to lose track of time staring at a postcard-sized reproduction of a Jackson Pollock, never mind the real thing. I'm an enthusiastic fan of Dada and Marcel Duchamp. I think I'm pretty open-minded where art is concerned. I think Rothko's stuff is art, no question, and that he has something to say. I have nothing against Mark Rothko, but I feel quite hostile to the critical establishment that has fetishized him into the role of cultural gatekeeper, using the reaction towards his work as a sort of socio-cultural litmus test designed to maintain a certain degree of inter-cultural homogeity. In short, I feel like curators make a big deal of him, though perhaps unconsciously, as a means of keeping people out rather than inviting them in.