Mark Rothko’s spatial conques

Abstract

This article aims to characterize the aesthetic experience of space in the work of painter Mark Rothko, taking into account philosophical considerations, especially those of Martin Heidegger and German Romanticism. The paper is intended to clarify the concept of space that comes into play specifically in the canvas of this twentieth century abstract expressionist painter, through an analyses of the stages of his career, and even suggest a conception of art spatiality in general. This spatiality is not substatial, frozen, quantitative, but, instead, is a dynamic, qualitative movement. Heidegger says that “space spaces”. Rothko’s paintings offer, through the very pictorial experience, a concrete sense of a space that is spacing.