Mark Rothko - Paint Quotes

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It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing. We assert that only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. That is why we profess spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art.

Mark Rothko

I paint very large pictures. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them however, - I think it applies to other painters I know -, is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command.

Mark Rothko

I hope to paint something that will ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room.

Mark Rothko

One does not paint for design students or historians but for human beings, and the reaction in human terms is the only thing that is really satisfactory to the artist.

Mark Rothko