A 'Closed Space'

Mark Rothko, a Russian, painted the Seagram murals for an exclusive room of the upmarket Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram building, New York.  It was the most prestigious commission ever awarded to an Abstract Expressionist painter, yet posed a huge dilemma for the artist.  Did he really want to create something that would only be seen by well-heeled  Americans, for an obscene amount of dollars?  No.  Rothko withdrew from the commission and at the same time his life and art began to unravel.  He gave nine of the murals to the Tate Gallery, insisting that they had a permanent room and were never mixed with other pieces of his work.

The paintings arrived in London on the 25th February in 1970, on the morning Rothko committed suicide in his studio.
I first visited the Tate and the Rothko room when I was seventeen, but more recently saw the Seagram murals on exhibition at the Tate Liverpool, which was a whole other experience.

All in one room, the walls painted a mid-grey, the massive rectangles of dark reds hovered in dim light.
Rothko had said his intention was to create a closed space.  What I saw were deep crimson portals, their surfaces shifting, and experienced an atmosphere so unlike any other that I became reluctant to leave.
This is not something that can be reproduced in a print or postcard sold in the shop, the only way to take it home is to hold in your mind the resonance and nuance of the colours with the feeling they left in your skin.  The nearness and tragedy of death that hovered just above the surface of the work.