Professor Butter Beard and Rothko’s “Untitled (Red on Red)”
“But it doesn’t mean anything!” – Brigitta Von Trapp, “The Sound of Music”
For decades, I have struggled with the concept and meaning of “modern art.” My mind wants to read art in a language I have studied and absorbed - achievable puzzles. I feel guilty and obvious in a modern gallery as I try to connect what I see to something I can understand. Only recently, maybe due to finally acknowledging the power of the unknown, have I been able to let go and allow myself to stand before a new work and freely experience the emotions it draws from within.
The rectangles of Mark Rothko were my first set of keys into this new uncharted territory.
Fearing that his elder sons were about to be drafted into the Imperial Russian Army, Jacob Rothkowitz emigrated with them from Russia (present day Latvia) to the United States. His youngest son, Markus Rothkowitz, remained in Russia with his mother and his elder sister until they too arrived at New York’s Ellis Island in late 1913 to cross the county and join Jacob in Portland, Oregon. After graduating from high school, “Mark” was awarded a scholarship to Yale University, but then dropped out at the end of his sophomore year. With the intent of focusing on his artistic passions, he moved to New York City in 1923 and remained there until his death by suicide in 1970, at age 66.
By 1950, Mark Rothko had fully developed his signature style of painting great floating rectangles of color. Doug Woodham writes, “Mark Rothko’s hovering rectangles of color suspended within monochromatic fields are among the most recognizable paintings produced in the 20th century.” From 1950 on, he would work almost invariably within this format, suggesting in numerous variations of color and tone an astonishing range of atmospheres and moods. He perfected this painstaking technique of overlaying colors until, in the words of art historian Dore Ashton, “his surfaces were velvety as poems of the night.”
Rothko's method was to apply a thin layer of egg-based binder mixed with pigment directly onto uncoated and untreated canvas and to paint washes of significantly thinned oils directly onto this layer, creating a dense mixture of overlapping colors and shapes. His brushstrokes were fast and light, appearing simple, but on close examination, the washes of color reveal a range of effects. At times, paint can be seen running upward across the surface. This is because Rothko often inverted a picture while working on it, sometimes changing the final orientation in the latest stages of its creation.
The artist recommend that viewers position themselves as little as eighteen inches away from the canvas so that they might experience (in his words), “a sense of intimacy, as well as awe, a transcendence of the individual, and a sense of the unknown.”
He wrote, “My paintings' surfaces are expansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles, you can find everything I want to say. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however ... 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!”
Thank you, Mr. Rothko. This was the key.
In November of 1958, Rothko gave an address to the Pratt Institute describing his “recipe of a work of art.”
In his words, art should include the following ingredients: “There must be a clear preoccupation with death—intimations of mortality. Tragic art, romantic art, etc., deals with the knowledge of death. Sensuality - our basis of being concrete about the world. It is a lustful relationship to things that exist. Tension - either conflict or curbed desire. Irony - the self-effacement and examination by which a man for an instant can go on to something else. Wit and play (the ephemeral and chance) - for the human element. And hope – at least 10% to make the tragic concept more endurable.”
“I measure these ingredients very carefully when I paint a picture. It is always the form that follows these elements and the picture results from the proportions of these elements.” A recipe. Emotions gathered together and whisked into a velvety batter to be baked into a cohesive expression of passion. Glorious rectangles of vibrant color. A red velvet cake. Oh Brigitta, I think it finally means something.
Rothko Red Velvet Cake
One two-layer cake with cream cheese frosting
The cake:
20 Tbsp unsalted butter (2 ½ sticks), room temperature
1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
3 Tbsp dark cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla paste
2-3 tsp red food coloring gel
1/3 cup hot water
2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda
Cream cheese frosting:
1 lb. cream cheese (2 8oz. blocks), room temperature
8 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 cup confectionary sugar
1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter two cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment.
2) In a standing mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and smooth (about five minutes).
3) In a small bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder and the hot water into a smooth paste. Add the food coloring gel and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Set aside.
4) In another small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
5) Add the eggs, one at a time, to the creamed butter/sugar. Then add the cocoa mixture. On low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk – 1/3 dry, ½ buttermilk, 1/3 dry, remaining buttermilk, remaining flour.
6) Remove the bowl from the mixer. In a very small bowl, whisk together the vinegar and baking soda. Fold this into the batter and then divide the batter evenly between the two pans. (This is a Paul Hollywood trick and I trust his baking secrets.)
7) Place the cakes in the oven and turn down the temperature to 325. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the cakes are puffed and just solid to the touch. Remove to a wire rack and cool completely in the pans.
8) While the cakes are cooling, beat together the cream cheese, butter and vanilla in a standing mixer. Add the confectionary sugar and beat until smooth.
9) When the cakes are completely cool, remove them from the pans and trim the mounded tops to make the layers flat. Save the trimmings and crumble them with your fingers to use (sparingly) as finishing decoration.
10) Pipe, or spread, half the frosting over the bottom layer, add the top and pipe (or spread) the remaining frosting on the top layer. Decorate sparingly with the cake crumbs.
