MATTHEW COLLINGS PREVIEWS A MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE OF ROTHKO AT THE KUNSTHALLE IN HAMBURG
When I think of Mark Rothko I think of a figure in the modern art sale rooms whose paintings can fetch $60m. I think of a sort of social mannerism that goes on at certain levels of the art world, where you're supposed to be so deeply moved by a Rothko that you break down and cry. And I think of a painting style that comes from the 1950s, which is about creating a subtle but powerful impression of a kind of inner glow. Rothko committed suicide in 1970 in a particularly violent and horrific way; he was found lying on the floor of his studio in a pool of blood, the tendons in the inside of his elbows cut nearly to the bone. A cult of Rothko has grown up around this distressing fact of his life story. Formlessness is seen as brooding foreboding, and Rothko becomes a modern Van Gogh, too sensitive for this world but a great artist of pain who leaves us a painted testimony of profound humane tragic sadness. But a striking feature of the present Rothko touring retrospective (which opens at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg today and tours to Tate Modern in September) is how careful and serious Rothko really is as an artist compared to the hysterical and hasty things that are said about him. 
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