Mark Rothko Inspirational Quotes (33)

The progression of a painter’s work…will be toward clarity toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer…to achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood.

The reason for my painting large canvases is that I want to be intimate and human.

To me art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risk.

The myth holds us, therefore, not through its romantic flavor, not the remembrance of beauty of some bygone age, not through the possibilities of fantasy, but because it expresses to us something real and existing in ourselves, as it was to those who first stumbled upon the symbols to give them life.

The picture must be... a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need.

There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend: One day, the black will swallow the red.

(I am) dealing not with the particular anecdote, but rather with the Spirit of Myth, which is generic to all myths at all times.

And last, it may be worthwhile trying to hang something beyond the partial wall because some of the pictures do very well in a confined space.

The reason for my painting large canvases is that I want to be intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command.