Four Darks in Red

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Mark Rothko, Four Darks in Red, 1958
By MELISA CAPAN

I’ll admit that I truly didn’t understand Mark Rothko and whatever he had been doing and why a painting of a colored square could cost millions and millions of dollars. I allowed myself to open a little shelf in my mind to the idea that maybe this is reasonable. What I came across was Existentialism. Rothko read many Existentialist papers, like those of Nietzsche (“God is dead” dude). The idea of Existentialism emphasizes an individual’s responsibility to shape his/her life in a world of nothingness. Sure, this can be an extremely depressing thought that human oblivion is inevitable, but it gave Rothko a chance at self-expression. He considered himself to be a “human being” who wasn’t caught up in society’s façade of wealth and superficial conversation. He sought for existence and hoped his audience would interpret his art in a way that never needed to be explained or critiqued by others.

Good thing I’m part of the audience because now I can try and interpret Rothko’s Four Darks in Red. The piece can easily be associated with the quote from John Logan’s Red, “One day the black will swallow the red,” Red being life and black being death. That’s a dark and gloomy Existentialist thought. I look at the painting and it reminds me of something all women go through, every month actually. The strokes of red lash around the darker toned shapes until it reaches the thick blackness. Once a month I feel like this and it feels like death itself. I’m happy and then all of a sudden I’m sobbing thinking the world doesn’t matter.

The large black shape is this nothingness. Tears drip from my face and I wonder what the point in life is after Shonda Rhimes kills, yet again, one of my favorite characters on Grey’s Anatomy. Pain of the deep reds mimic the emotional drainage I make up in my head. Next thing I know I am snapping at my mom about the tiny coffee stain on my shirt and how it ruined my whole outfit in which I exaggerate to ruining my whole life. Just as it ends, I await for the next cycle, Much like life and death. Much like Four Darks in Red. The painting seems to shift from shade to shade, being linked by a bright red that brings everything together.

This piece of artwork pulsates, explodes and then disappears as my eyes move around it. I understand Mark Rothko’s Four Darks in Red to be a cycle, whether it is the female cycle or the cycle of life, it continues. 
  • 7:00 AM

Black, Black on Wine

Black on Wine
Mark Rothko, Black, Black on Wine, 1958
By MEGAN GANNON

 Initially Black, Black on Wine looks like any other of Rothko's later works with black consuming the painting, pools of color around the edges and a rough line through the center. Hinting perhaps at his fear of the artistic and literal death by black displayed in Shama and Red.

Now take a second, let the painting pulse. Let the two vague black squares pulse against the delicate yet messy line in the middle. Look how the painting pulls the little line in and out of the darkness, allowing it to escape at the edges of the canvas. That messy delicate line represents us. Humans. The loosely shapen blacken shadows represent the pressures of society and the internal struggle within ourselves. Day by day we pulse between what society deems correct and with our own internal conflict. Some days the two agree in nice symmetry and others the two struggle to coexist. Rothko argues that the pressures consume us.

 Transport yourself into the space between the shadows. Do you feel the anxiety? The rush in your blood, the pressure to succeed, to live. Didi and Gogo lacked purpose, but what happens when your subconscious argues over your purpose: pushing you in the way of society while simultaneously your mind pulls you in a completely different direction. What happens when the black shadows loom over you and your insides spill out the sides, trying to escape. The pigments bursting at the seams to overcome the pressures of society and ourselves.

Unfortunately we will not experience some explosion of technicolor freeing our little line, for us we exist between the black. Our own version of Sisyphus and his boulder.

  • 7:00 AM

The Calling of Saint Matthew

Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599-1600

Note: We mortals are not worthy to comment on this painting or its creator.

Sir Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio tore through restrictions in both society and painting. He killed over girls, pulled swords and daggers on people in the street, and vandalized his own apartment in a fit of rage. Caravaggio’s mouth got him in more trouble than did his actions, and when his life of debauchery got him exiled, he began an adventure that took him all over Italy, led him to become a knight in Malta, and set him up to blow everyone away upon his return.

The Baroque artist had indisputable natural talent. He did not sketch before painting, which only makes his works more impressive, and he rejected the classical idea that Biblical personages must be depicted as celestial beings in Utopian scenes. Caravaggio shared a covenant of honesty with his public, so he did not hesitate to show the morbid, painful, and real aspects of life. He brought all subjects down to the same base level, because saints were humans, just like the peasants of 1600, on the same Earth as Caravaggio.

The Fabbrica of St. Peter’s commissioned The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599-1600), coupled with The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, for the Contarelli Chapel. The first publicly displayed works of Caravaggio, these paintings highlight his artistic strengths of light and dark, weight, and earthliness. The Calling of Saint Matthew shows a conversion in austerity. Matthew, the apostle who wrote the first Gospel, was a tax collector obsessed with the material until called upon by Christ. Matthew counts money in a common, dirty tavern until the light of God comes down to bring him out of his materialistic darkness. In this representation, the partially-hidden Christ appears in the background instead of acting as the focus of the painting.

The aesthetic of The Calling of Saint Matthew comes from the vertical/horizontal balance of the painting's subjects. Contrast in body language and color also draws in observers to explore the variety of the work. The staging allows the scene to feel intimate and natural but still open its audience. Caravaggio breaks down the fourth wall in many of his paintings, and his use of heaviness and facial expression allows the masses to relate to Saint Matthew’s miracle, whether they first see this painting in 1600 or 2015.

  • 5:30 PM

David with the Head of Goliath

Caravaggio
Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1610

If I ever commit murder, I would not think to paint a piece of artwork as penance, but that is what Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio did.  After being accused of murder, Caravaggio painted this work in order to gain a papal pardon.  He was granted the pardon, but died before given the fortunate news.  

Caravaggio's portrayal of David and Goliath differs from the typical story of the two.  I was told of their story in Sunday school when I was but a diminutive, gullible child.  The story goes as any underdog story would: the youngest boy of a sheep herder fights a giant of a man and miraculously kills him with a slingshot, which is a good story for a little kid and all. But looking back on it reminds me of the manner in which children are raised.  I was brought up thinking that the world was good and happy and no matter what everything will turn out my way.  That. is. wrong.  Caravaggio's David exhibits the exact distaste for reality as I do.  The majority of the world is corrupt and horrible.  The black background behind David perfectly shows that as despite his victory, the world is still just as dark before Goliath's death.

  • 7:00 AM

Joseph with Jacob in Egypt

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Pontormo, Joseph with Jacob in Egypt, 1518
Pontormo uses his manneristics ways to insert four seperate scenes into one cohesive painting. All the scenes work together and make the painting flow in a certain direction. The first scene in the bottom left corner is Joseph introducing his father to the Pharoah of Egypt. Jacob is on his hands and knees on the ground out of respect for the Pharoah. Joseph is wearing a purple robe and pointing to his father on the ground.

The next scene in in the bottom right corner is Joseph sitting on a cart listening to a message about his father, read to him by a messenger who is on his knees next to Josephs cart. . This message is thought to be the news of his fathers illness. Joseph is sitting and holding his eldest son Ephraim on his lap.

The third scene is Joseph in the same clothing as the previous scenes walking up the mysterious stair case with his son. The stairs do not seem to be going anywhere in particular, a very maneristic thing to do. Pontormo is not accurately representing a set of stairs but puts them in the painting as a transition for all the scenes to cohesivly fit together as one piece of work.

The fourth scene is on the balcony at the top right of the painting. Jacob is on his death bed and is blessing his son and all of his grandsons before he passes away. All the scenes work in a way to bring the viewers eyes to the scene at the top.

Pontormo painted this painting for Pier Francesco Borgherini in his bridal chamber. This painting was a set of four panels all portraying scenes from the book of Genesis. Pontormo brings his own life in to the painting by inserting his apprentice Bronzino as a young boy sitting on the stairs in the front wearing a brown coat. Overall this painting is a great representation of four scenes from Josephs life and an example of a manneristic painting at work.


  • 7:00 AM