Three Nudes (or Nude in Motion) with Trees to the Left 

Curator: Today, we’re examining "Three Nudes (or Nude in Motion) with Trees to the Left," a pen sketch attributed to Mark Rothko. Editor: There’s an energy here, isn't there? A frantic yet elegant kind of line-work creates what feels like a scene caught in-between movements. Curator: Absolutely. It’s executed in pen and ink, quite stark when you consider Rothko's trajectory toward color field paintings. Here we see raw materiality; paper, ink, and the artist's immediate gesture all come to the fore. What paper stock did he favor at this time? Was this drawing from a ream readily at hand, or something carefully selected? Editor: Looking beyond the mere material qualities of the pen sketch, it also calls to mind the classical themes of bathers or nymphs in a landscape setting. The figures are interwoven, almost like a single, multifaceted body. Curator: Interesting observation. It challenges the supposed hierarchy between sketch and finished piece, no? It questions labor of production as a commodity to be sold, but an honest pursuit of artmaking and exploration through process. Editor: Perhaps it even prefigures Rothko's later abstractions, with its fragmented and dissolving forms hinting at a deeper psychological space, especially as it calls to mind the archetype of the eternal feminine spirit of life. Curator: And it leads to other questions: Where did he choose to do this, in an outdoor space where he observed a live model in relation to nature? What time of the day was it, was there some sort of rush that can be observed in his marks? The physical act of making becomes crucial to understand this artwork. Editor: A glimpse, then, into a complex internal world. It reveals the artist as a sensitive register of powerful symbolic languages which extend from classical themes through to Rothko's mature expressionism. Curator: Well, considering how radically different it seems compared to Rothko's best known work, it certainly compels us to reconsider simplistic narratives about artistic progress. Editor: Yes, it enriches our view. There are connections, deeper motifs in the human psyche linking what might seem disparate across a lifetime.