Meditation on Color
Audio
June 14, 2023
“If you are only moved by color relationships, you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom.”
Make time for your mental health, and enjoy our new meditation on color inspired by Mark Rothko’s Yellow and Blue (Yellow, Blue on Orange).
Step-by-Step Meditation
- Pause and look at this large vertical canvas by Mark Rothko.
- Notice the color field he used in this work: yellow juxtaposed with blue, layered upon orange.
- What emotions do you think these colors might have represented for the artist? What emotions do they evoke for you as a viewer?
- How do these colors make you feel when they are placed next to one another?
- Close your eyes and imagine your mind’s eye as a blank canvas.
- Imagine the following colors and notice any emotions that arise along with them: dark blue, green, purple, bright orange, soft pink, yellow.
- Let this color visualization go.
- As you continue to move throughout your day, notice how the different colors you see around you make you feel.
This work is on view in Scaife Gallery 11.
Image: Mark Rothko, American, 1903–1970, Yellow and Blue (Yellow, Blue on Orange), c. 1955; oil on canvas, Overall 102 ¼ × 66 11/16 × 1 ⅜ in 259.72 × 169.39 × 3.49 cm, Fellows Fund, Women’s Committee Acquisition Fund, and Patrons Art Fund, 74.55 © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York