14 Ghosts in the Rothko Chapel
By
Gary M. Smith
By
Gary M. Smith
It was back in late nineteen sixty-nine or early nineteen seventy when my friend Ray Kelly, who was Mark Rothko’s studio assistant, asked if I’d like to see some huge Mark Rothko paintings before they were shipped to Houston, Texas where they would be placed on permanent exhibition in a Phillip Johnson designed nondenominational chapel. I jumped at the invitation, and a day or two later, Ray called to tell me it had been arranged with Mr. Rothko. We went to the studio that afternoon.
What I saw was breathtaking. Fourteen very large, very dark paintings in deep purples with violet and deep red undertones. Their huge smooth surfaces seemed to breathe, to absorb the light in the room, until a dark spiritual mood prevailed. Rothko was absent that day, so I spent more than an hour with the paintings while Ray caught up with some studio work. We left as the sun was setting and the colors of the city outside seemed to echo those colors I’d been overwhelmed with in the studio. We walked in silence, because I was speechless in awe of the paintings.
It was only a few weeks later, that I bumped into Ray Kelly on Broome Street and he told me that Rothko had committed suicide. The flood of anguish I felt at the news immediately brought the paintings back to mind. Filled with loss, I went to my studio, and sat there numb, far into the night. A great light had gone out, and I ached for the loss.
I knew from conversations with Ray Kelly, that Rothko used a particularly cheap brand of dry pigments one could buy in any New York hardware store. This dry pigment, brand named Rainbow Colors, was intended to be used to tint plaster and possibly concrete. Rothko apparently liked to mix the pigments until he achieved the hue he wanted while they were still dry. Then the colors were mixed with a medium and made ready for applying to canvas. In those days, no one had given a thought to fugitive colors, and how fast they could vanish on a canvas, especially if they were exposed to sunlight. Rothko certainly hadn’t. It is unlikely any painter had given the fugitive pigment concept much thought at all. That idea fell to restorers of fading artworks.
Phillip Johnson’s design for the Houston chapel included a skylight at the crown of the building. The thought was, and I believe Rothko concurred, that the paintings should be viewed in natural light as much as possible. Therein lies the problem in fugitive pigments. natural sunlight, over time, will cause fugitive pigments to fade, and to alter their intended colors.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in Houston for the first time, and wanted to see the chapel, and the fourteen large Rothko’s I so fondly remembered in his New York studio. The day I went, the sky was overcast, and the mood of the chapel was already somber to say the least.
As you enter the chapel, there is a desk, with a woman who is there to explain the chapel, and to offer a brochure or two about the chapel and the paintings. I mentioned I’d seen the paintings in Rothko’s studio before they left New York, and hadn’t seen them since. She asked me to tell her what I thought about how they had survived the approximately 37 years the paintings had been hanging in the chapel.
I walked to the right of the desk, and entered the chapel proper, which is a large polygon shaped room. There was a girl there who appeared to be doing a study, and a second woman sitting in an alcove, I’m sure to keep an eye on the paintings. I stood for a long moment absorbing the impact of the room itself. The large dark panels of the paintings are distributed equidistant around the walls of the chapel, and are at first glance, part of the architecture of the room.
I walked to the center, stopped and rotated slowly taking in the paintings as I did. The shock of seeing the magnificent paintings again was overpowering and devastating in the same instant. Rothko’s incredible contribution to art, had fled the scene. The only relationship to the paintings I remembered from 37 years before, present in the chapel that day was their size, and shapes. The fugitive pigments he had used, had dissolved into meaningless scumbled brush strokes that Rothko had been adamant about softening into oblivion when they were painted. Now the large expanses of fading purples have lost their violet and deep red undertones, and only a harsh series of repetitive vertical brushstrokes remains on most of the panels.
Some of the edged panels seem to have been protected somewhat from such devastating damage, but even they are fading. However one can still see hints of their deep reds, although the violets have vanished. My thought about their partial survival is they were fortunate enough to be hung on walls that were out of the stream of UV rays the remaining panels have suffered from given their orientation to the sun where they hang in the chapel. Even so, the paintings have all become ghosts of their former selves.
I have to acknowledge that the room is still moving and meaningful, but I mourn the loss of Rothko’s great contribution, and how quickly the paintings have vanished into history. For those who don’t have the hindsight I brought to this visit, I hope they can go away having been uplifted by the stark panels that still hang in the room. I think it is doubtful future generations will have much to contemplate but dirty stained canvases with little pigment left with which to speak.
What a great tragedy that these moving and emotional works are gone now; mere ghosts of their former glory; mere shadows remain of their power to bring joy or sadness, and deep contemplation to our hearts and minds. To have seen them in their newness is a privilege I’ll forever cherish.
—Bogotá, Colombia, September 22, 2007
