There But For The Grace of God?
I was very interested to read in the Weekend FT Arts of an exhibition of Mark Rothko's painting in Florence running currently. Not housed and concentrated in a single exhibition space, but distributed throughout three venues: the Palazzo Strozzi, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana and the Museo Di San Marco. I would dearly love to see these pictures in this latter context [above] as I'm of the opinion that of all twentieth century artists, Rothko is the most deeply and humanly spiritual of painters, and whose works sit most naturally alongside those of the great Italian quattrocento painters such as Fra Angelico. Rothko had the ability in his later paintings to bring the sublime into secular life in a way that few others have achieved. Religious belief isn't the central point of his work, much as I believe that religion, oddly, isn't a prerequisite for the spiritual experience of introspection in religious buildings either great or humble. Zen is zen, after all, and t...