Mark Rothko Quote

For me, [Clyfford] Still's pictorial dramas are an extension of the Greek Persephone myth. As he himself has expressed it, his paintings are 'of the Earth, the Damned, and of the Recreated'. Every shape becomes an organic entity, inviting the multiplicity of associations inherent in all living things. To me they form a theogony of the most elementary consciousness, hardly aware of itself beyond the will to live – a profound and moving experience.

Art of this Century, February 12 – March 2, 1946, Peggy Guggenheim Papers on the work of Clyfford Still; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 203