Mark Rothko's Four Darks In Red

The purpose or even the definition of art has a different meaning to every individual. To some it is an attempt to create beauty which they do not see in their daily lives; to some art is a social tool used to protest or educate; for others art has no real purpose. For most of my early education the visual arts were simply another hoop to jump through, fine arts having no meaning in my daily life, and thus I felt that there was very little to gain through interactions with the subject, other than that of an aesthetically pleasing image to glide by in a museum. It was not until my sophomore year in high school that I began to grasp the idea of art in the terms of human emotion, a transition which I mainly attribute to the works of Mark Rothko. Rothko’s piece Four Darks in Red acted as my …show more content…
Through my own understanding of Rothko’s work, his application of the philosophical into the visual, the sentiments he conveyed through the use of color, and the way in which he wanted viewers to be emotionally consumed through their interactions with his pieces, I gained an insight into the importance of human relationships with the visual arts, which influenced the thought and meaning I put into my own work as an artist, but also into the way I analyze every visual I am faced with. Through the transcendental meaning of Mark Rothko’s work came my own understanding of the meaning of art, that art does not have one meaning, but many, art gives people hope, inspires people to create, reassures us of the normality of our emotions, teaches us about our own humanity, and allows us to express what we desire in our daily lives, all things which I believe make the arts crucial to societal development. Along with my own idea of what the arts could mean, came a new passion for understanding art, the context, the artist’s purpose, the