Three Girls Seated c. 1930

Mark Rothko's 'Three Girls Seated' is like a hazy dream caught in watercolor and gouache. Imagine Rothko, brush in hand, coaxing these figures into being—not with sharp lines, but with soft, melting edges. The pinks, ochres, and muted greens blend like a watercolor wash left out in the sun, almost bleached. I can see him, stepping back, squinting, adding a dab of colour here, a stroke there. It feels so intuitive, like he's not just painting what he sees, but what he feels. There's a gentle sorrow in their eyes, a quiet dignity in their posture. It reminds me of Milton Avery, another colourist, whose simplified figures also captured a similar emotional vulnerability. This piece is a window into Rothko's journey. The way he's playing with colour and form feels like he’s searching for something beyond representation. You can feel his hunger to distill emotion into its purest form, even before he was fully absorbed by abstraction. He must have been thinking about how to make colour sing! Artists are always having this conversation, across time, and across the studio.