No. 3 1953

Mark Rothko made No. 3 using oil paint on canvas. Look at the painting. What can you see? Two blocks of color, one sitting on top of the other. The edges are soft and blurry, the top almost as if it is floating in a misty cloud. The red below is bolder. The yellow stripe at the very bottom, peeking out at the edge of the painting, is as if supporting it from below. I see a bit of Agnes Martin here, that softness of touch, but Rothko's work is more assertive. I imagine him in his studio, moving the paint around on the canvas. Red is a powerful color; I imagine that he might have wanted to explore how the colors interact on the canvas. What would happen if he put red next to yellow, next to a muted off-white? He creates a painting that is so quiet and yet so loud. It's a tricky balance to achieve. Artists learn from each other, inspire each other. That’s the beauty of art, always in conversation.