The Seagram Murals.

Whenever I'm watching something, I'm doodling at the same time. I'm not quite sure how and when I developed this habit. I always keep a notebook nearby and I just doodle.

A week or so ago I began drawing random squares and colouring them in.  After the first time, I ended up with a page covered in small blue squares. Looking at them all immediately after, I recalled Rothko's paintings- "The Seagram Murals". Although- I didn't know them by name at the time. 

Let's go back in time. 

About four years ago, a few friends and I visited the Tate Modern in London. We went on a few guided tours and browsed for a bit, and then we came to the Rothko paintings. The "Seagram Murals" are in a smaller gallery that is lighted dimly. The room immediately has a sombre and almost heavy atmosphere. I remember walking in there for the first time and being hit by this wave of feeling. 

Art is difficult. I am no expert on art and what makes it good or bad. Walking around the Tate that day, following a lady who provided insight into all these wonderful paintings and their history, I felt the importance of art, but I definitely needed some basic knowledge to access the paintings she described. For example, she gave such a good background of some of Picasso's paintings which helped when I looked at his works. My point here is that getting to an initial response was hard for me. I had to look and think deeply at the paintings and installations I came across. 

Walking into Room 3 and being confronted by those deep reds was a completely different experience. I remember that room as being empty, although I'm sure it can't have been. According to my memory, I entered that room alone. My friends probably came in after me. I stared at the murals for a long time. The first ones I looked at were"Section 74" and "Section 5". Hanging together, these two murals evoked the strongest feeling I have ever had towards art. The colour, the ambience of the room, the scale and the beauty of the murals made me feel overwhelmed.With sadness, heaviness, memory. Everything. I remember that moment because the feeling surprised me. I didn't realise I could react to art so immediately. I didn't realise how much it could make me feel. 

Staring at my doodles of random squares, that experience is what I recalled. Now, I am not saying I am a budding Rothko-esque artist (is that even a thing?), but being hit by blocks colour reminded me of being at the Tate. 

I have been thinking about those murals ever since. 

So today, I visited the Tate again. 

Oh man, walking into that room. 

I cried. 

Not in a passionate, dramatic way. It was quiet, subtle. I brushed the tears away quickly before anyone could see. But seeing those murals again just filled me with so many feelings. According to Rothko, the best way to experience the murals is to sit and look at them, almost meditatively. I did that, and it was beautiful. 

Staring at these large mural, I was confronted by everything not in front of me. There is no drawing, no landscape, no figure. The murals give you a shape, almost like a frame, almost like windows. That's the way I see it anyway. The simplest (and probably extremely reductive) way of viewing the murals for me was to see them as windows or entrances into yourself- myself. The soul, if you will. Sitting there, staring at those murals, I would see certain strokes bleed into others. I would feel calm and scared all at once. 

For this one above- "Section 4"- I remember all the colours blurring in and changing almost. The longer I gazed at them, the more I grew to love and see the murals.

They have given me the most profound experience of art that I have ever had.

Murals in order:

Mark Rothko

Red on Maroon Mural, Section 74 1959

Tate. Presented by the artist through the American Federation of Arts 1969 

© Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/DACS 1998

Red on Maroon Mural, Section 5 1959

Red on Maroon Mural, Section 4 1959