NGA | Mark Rothko | Late Works 4a

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1968, Private Collection

Rothko's reading of Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher, suggests that his work could represent the opposition between a rational or abstract element and an emotional, primal, or tragic one (referring to Nietzsche's discussion of the polarity between an Apollonian and a Dionysian principle). Certain qualities such as radiance or the duality of light and dark have a symbolic meaning in Western culture from which Rothko clearly drew. An impression of vast space is said to represent the historical concept of the "sublime," a quasi-religious experience of limitless immensity. The installation of these canvases also produces its own sacrosanct environment.