What Is It About The Troubled Artist?
Mark Rothko
A few days ago, I went to see the play, RED, written by John Logan. A winner of six Tony awards in 2010, RED tells the story of Mark Rothko, abstract expressionist painter and contemporary of Jackson Pollock, during the time he got a commission to do a group of murals for the Four Season restaurant in New York. The play’s appeal comes from the way the playwright portrayed the troubled artist. Mark Rothko’s genius is highlighted, but so is his massive ego and his insecurity. All are revealed over the course of a two year relationship with a young artist, who serves as his apprentice in this story.
As a writer, I don’t profess to have Rothko’s genius, but I do have his insecurities, and perhaps enough ego to continue to battle the obstacles in my way. Every artist—whether they are actors, dancers, singers, painters, sculptors or writers—fights this battle to get noticed. For any artist, there isn’t an exact science to follow, even though there are techniques that need to be mastered in each discipline. Once those are learned, the artist can fly, soar with the best. But the expression of the artist’s soul is so individual that it can’t escape judgement. What appeals to one body does not appeal to another. How many times have we read of books that have been rejected and then later applauded? How many art works have been condemned for their poor composition or use of colour and then later valued for their innovative approach? One only has to read about the Impressionists and how they had to battle the critics in the salons of Paris to understand the creative dilemma.
How does the artist know then when they are wasting their time pursuing their art? The question and the answer is as old as time. It’s up to the artist to decide when enough is enough. Some keep spinning their wheels, some adapt, and others move on. In Mark Rothko’s case, he chose suicide. He couldn’t stomach the kind of response he got later on in his life. He couldn’t accept the changing public opinion. He had his own, and that didn’t jive with what he heard and what he read about his art. He also did not accept the artists who followed him and had their own style. He had forgotten that he had once broken the rules and had dared to go where others hadn’t. At one point in the play—when Rothko complains about the diners (in the Four Seasons Restaurant) who focus on their dinners instead of admiring his art—the apprentice says to the troubled artist, “It’s just a painting.” This young artist could just as easily say to writers who sweat over their material, “it’s just a book.”
For more on this play, playwright John Logan offers his thoughts on Mark Rothko and his play RED.
But where would we be without artists who toil to help us understand our world? Where would we without the artists who touch our souls and our hearts with their take on the world as they see it? It’s sad that Rothko chose to end it the way he did, but who knows what’s in one man’s heart. Art, like nature, thrives on balance. For art to matter, the artist has to give, but not so much that he loses himself.
So true!!! Well Written….Its a reality that each one of us wants to get noticed and want our work to be admired!
Keep Smiling! 🙂
Yes, art is to be shared. It’s the whole point. The artist works to express his creativity, to say something about himself and the world he lives in. In the video interview with John Logan, the playwright mentions how he stood at the Tate Gallery where some of the Mark Rothko’s Four Seasons paintings are hung and felt such melancholy. Rothko’s genius came out on canvas and people were moved.