Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea 1944

Curator: Here we have Mark Rothko's "Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea" from 1944, a mixed-media painting currently housed here at MoMA. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: Oh, my. It feels like a fever dream. You know, that in-between state when reality is dissolving, and familiar shapes become something…else? Like a strange memory surfacing. Curator: Indeed. It's from Rothko’s Surrealist phase, predating his signature color fields. During the early to mid-1940s, influenced by the turbulent years of World War II, his work was steeped in mythological and organic imagery, mirroring a search for primal truths. Editor: Primal is right! It makes me think of ritualistic dances, maybe figures swaying on a shore under a bruised sky. See those forms? Are they totems? Relics? I imagine chanting... Curator: Scholars suggest the motifs recall classical mythology and biomorphic forms inspired by Joan Miró and perhaps even aspects of early Indigenous art from the Americas. We see figures that verge on recognizably human, then swiftly dissolve into abstract shapes. Editor: Dissolving! Yes, like the sea is erasing everything at the shoreline. It’s eerie but there is also something strangely...tender about it. The colors are subdued, almost like whispers. Not the kind of bold statements he’s famous for later on, right? Curator: Precisely. This period reveals Rothko grappling with anxieties related to identity, existence, and the very role of art amidst societal upheaval. This painting hints at his coming abstractions. The layered washes, the blurred lines--it suggests a movement beyond clear figuration towards evoking pure emotion through color. Editor: I guess so... For me, it is the beginning of a long, turbulent conversation. Like watching a chrysalis... knowing something astonishing is about to break through, change everything... I'd love to linger here and let the feelings settle. It makes me wonder, what "slow swirl" is going on at the edge of MY sea right now? Curator: A pertinent question for our times, I believe. This piece offers us much more than a visual experience—it invites profound introspective explorations into ourselves and society.