Skip to content
Sign in
Artwork for The School of Life
The School of Life · Yesterday · 4 min

ART/ARCHITECTURE - Mark Rothko

The most unexpectedly uplifting and consoling artist of the 20th century was the abstract painter Mark Rothko, the high priest of grief and loss who spent the latter part of his career turning out a succession of sublime and sombre canvases that spoke, as he put it, of the ‘tragedy of being human’. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/2UO2j Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/8yZbf FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/3QcGoaA “The most unexpectedly uplifting and consoling artist of the 20th century was the abstract painter Mark Rothko, the high priest of grief and loss who spent the latter part of his career turning out a succession of sublime and sombre canvases that spoke, as he put it, of the ‘tragedy of being human’ — and who, in 1970, ended his own life at the age of 66 in his studio in New York. Born in Dvinsk, Russia, Rothko emigrated to the United States at the age of ten and immediately grew to despise the aggressive good cheer and steely optimism of his adopted land. Appalled by the sentimentality around him, he learnt to make art that was insular, unrelenting, sombre and oriented towards pain. It was, one critic said, the visual equivalent of a condemned prisoner’s last gasp. Rothko’s favourite colours were a burnt burgundy, dark grey, pitch black and blood red, occasionally, alleviated by a sliver of yellow…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on ART/ARCHITECTURE in our playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28Xmpcp7jXVszdNruKUtHZ2zuZb SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Diego Londeiros https://thebrightagency.com/uk/animation/artists/diego-lodeiros?collection=gifs Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

0:00-4:56
Play in podnod

transcript

No transcript — this publisher did not publish one.

show notes

The most unexpectedly uplifting and consoling artist of the 20th century was the abstract painter Mark Rothko, the high priest of grief and loss who spent the latter part of his career turning out a succession of sublime and sombre canvases that spoke, as he put it, of the ‘tragedy of being human’. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/2UO2j Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/8yZbf FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/3QcGoaA “The most unexpectedly uplifting and consoling artist of the 20th century was the abstract painter Mark Rothko, the high priest of grief and loss who spent the latter part of his career turning out a succession of sublime and sombre canvases that spoke, as he put it, of the ‘tragedy of being human’ — and who, in 1970, ended his own life at the age of 66 in his studio in New York. Born in Dvinsk, Russia, Rothko emigrated to the United States at the age of ten and immediately grew to despise the aggressive good cheer and steely optimism of his adopted land. Appalled by the sentimentality around him, he learnt to make art that was insular, unrelenting, sombre and oriented towards pain. It was, one critic said, the visual equivalent of a condemned prisoner’s last gasp. Rothko’s favourite colours were a burnt burgundy, dark grey, pitch black and blood red, occasionally, alleviated by a sliver of yellow…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on ART/ARCHITECTURE in our playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28Xmpcp7jXVszdNruKUtHZ2zuZb SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Diego Londeiros https://thebrightagency.com/uk/animation/artists/diego-lodeiros?collection=gifs Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

links1

more episodes

All episodes