Mark Rothko

I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on—and the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.

A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky and hazardous act to send it out into the world. How often it must be impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the impotent who would extend their affliction universally!

The most important tool the artist fashions is himself.

I paint large pictures 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.

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 academicism. There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.

The artist's function is to make the spectator see the world his way—not his way of seeing, but the world he sees.

I think of my pictures as dramas; the shapes in the pictures are the performers. They have been created from the need for a group of actors who are able to act out the drama.

If you are only moved by color relationships, then you miss the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom.

I would like to say to those who think of my pictures as serene, that I have imprisoned the most utter violence in every square inch of their surface.

The progression of a painter's work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer.

A painting is not a picture of an experience; it is an experience.

We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.

We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless.

It is not the intention of the artist to create a beautiful work, but to create a work that is true.

The fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.

I'm interested in expressing the big emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom.

The unfriendliness of the world to the artist is not a new thing. It is a constant.

To me, art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risks.

I would like to be able to say that I have painted a picture that is as good as a piece of music.

I'm not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions.