The Artist's Reality
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
One of the most important artists of the twentieth century, Mark Rothko (193–197) created a new and impassioned form of abstract painting over the course of his career. Rothko also wrote a number of essays and critical reviews during his lifetime, adding his thoughtful, intelligent, and opinionated voice to the debates of the contemporary art world. Although the artist never published a book of his varied and complex views, his heirs indicate that he occasionally spoke of the existence of such a manuscript to friends and colleagues. Stored in a New York City warehouse since the artist’s death more than thirty years ago, this extraordinary manuscript, titled The Artist’s Reality, is now being published for the first time.
Probably written around 194–41, this revelatory book discusses Rothko’s ideas on the modern art world, art history, myth, beauty, the challenges of being an artist in society, the true nature of ̶American art,” and much more. The Artist’s Reality also includes an introduction by Christopher Rothko, the artist’s son, who describes the discovery of the manuscript and the complicated and fascinating process of bringing the manuscript to publication. The introduction is illustrated with a small selection of relevant examples of the artist’s own work as well as with reproductions of pages from the actual manuscript.
The Artist’s Reality will be a classic text for years to come, offering insight into both the work and the artistic philosophies of this great painter.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While major 20th-century abstract artist Rothko (1903-1980) left a record of his ideas about art and method in several essays and reviews, rumors circulated about the existence of a full-length monograph on the philosophy of art. Rothko himself never brought it forth, and it was not found at his death. Probably written in the early 1940s, the newly discovered manuscript provides Rothko's considerable insights into topics ranging from art as a form of action to plasticity, naturalism and primitivism. For Rothko, "Art is not only a form of action, it is a form of social action. For art is a form of communication." Thus beauty resides less in objects than in "a certain type of emotional exaltation which is a result of stimulation by certain qualities common to all great works of art." An introduction by Rothko's son, Christopher, provides the details of the discovery of the manuscript as well as a nice short biography of Rothko. The whole offers fascinating insights into the ways a major artist thought about his medium and its conceptual premises.
