Rear View of a Woman Seated at a Desk c. 1930

This painting, Rear View of a Woman Seated at a Desk, was made by Mark Rothko, but we don't know exactly when or how. The brushstrokes are pretty free and open, and the palette feels very warm – the kind of warmth that makes you think about how paintings are made, layer by layer. There’s something very satisfying about the way Rothko lets the colors pool and blend here. See how the brushstrokes travel every which way, and the color of that bright blue chair bleeds into the floor, and into the figure’s skirt. It’s like he's not trying to hide the process, you know? It's like he's saying, "Here's the painting, and here's how it came to be.” You can see Rothko grappling with how to represent this scene. And to me, that's what art is all about – embracing the messy, the unresolved, the ambiguous. The way he lays down the paint here reminds me a little of Bonnard or Vuillard. They all seemed to understand that a painting isn't about capturing a perfect image, but about capturing a feeling, an experience, a moment in time.