Mark Rothko’s visit

1959

 
 

“When I first came to Europe and saw the Rock of Gibraltar, I didn’t think of imperialism, or Nelson, or anything historical. I just thought of Molly Bloom. This was part of the continent where Joyce lived. And when I stepped on to the soil of France, I thought, this is Europe, this is where Chaplin and Mozart walked. But do you know, I couldn’t think of the name of a single painter.


“In Europe, places compete with paintings. You forget all about Piero when you see that wonderful sloping piazza in Arezzo. It’s the people and the buildings and streets that are real – not the paintings. That was what I liked. The people in the streets. Of all the arts, painting is the most artificial. Perhaps all the paintings should be sent to some northern country where you could go and see them when you actually wanted  to look at a painting, or perhaps they should be kept in a cabinet, rolled up like a Japanese scroll.


“You know of all the Italian painters, I thought Fra Angelico was the toughest. I’m really tired of all those madonnas, and the good and evil myth throughout Christian art.


“Look at that little painting! [A third-rate Lamorna (Birch) bluebell-wood sketch.] I wish I could do that! I don’t mean that painting, but just go and sit in the woods and paint, with trees, and birdsong. You know, the life of an abstract painter is that of the loneliest artist – all alone in that studio, you and the picture – no model to talk to – nothing. It’s very hard. Like Courbet when he had to flee from France. You’re all alone. Painting is above all a moral activity. Look at Pollock’s suicide. It’s not surprising. Peter [Lanyon] is of course a very religious painter. That sustains him.


“What is it like to be successful now? Too late – too late. I needed that success when I was thirty-five, not now. All I can do is keep on working now.


“We painters have been lucky, publicised by the government. Sure there are a whole lot of completely different artists stemming from Mondrian’s stay in New York, but nobody pushes them, not yet. They’re not official art like us.


“You think my paintings are calm, like windows in some cathedral? You should look again. I’m the most violent of all the American painters. Behind those colours there hides the final cataclysm. Yes, painting is a moral activity alright. Some people think [Arshile] Gorky was violent, or Bill [Willem] de Kooning, but there’s a latent violence in my art. Look again!


“That your painting? Very nice painting. No don't apologise. That’s all right. I really like that.”


[Canney added: At a subsequent party at Peter Lanyon’s, Rothko told my wife (Madeleine Canney) when he was washing dishes with her he’d had to work washing dishes at one period of his life and he took to art because it was the easiest way to see nude women!]

 

American painter Mark Rothko visited Newlyn Art Gallery in August 1959, in the company of Peter Lanyon and Jack Pender. Michael Canney made these verbatim notes of Rothko’s statements immediately after his departure.

‘You think my paintings are calm, like windows in some cathedral? You should look again. I’m the most violent of all the American painters. Behind those colours there hides the final cataclysm.’

Mark Rothko

Artistic gathering

Mark Rothko, centre right, with Peter Lanyon, top left, and Terry Frost, right, at a lunch at Kerris (Paul Feiler's house) during Rothko's 1959
UK visit