Art History Leans Into Rothko
Mr. Mark Luce’s art history class practiced painting their favorite works by abstract painter Mark Rothko this week.
The class has been studying the work and life of Rothko, who was known for expressing intense human emotion using large fields of color. During this unit, students watched the play “Red,” and BBC’s “The Power of Art,” both of which explore the creation of a series of large scale paintings known as the “Seagram Murals” during 1958-1959. The paintings, originally intended for the walls of a restaurant in the Seagram Building in New York, are now on display at the Tate Modern gallery in London.
On Wednesday, August 27, art history students met outside under the lower school playground pavilion to paint three of their favorite Rothko works with watercolors. This exercise allowed them to express themselves and understand Rothko’s process by working with color firsthand. Students then hung their paintings around the school, adding new color to Barstow’s hallways.
