Engage in a discussion of Mark Rothko’s artistic development toward abstraction with special attention to issues of interpretation. This lecture specifically addresses the following citation by the artist: “I am not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else.… I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.… And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.”
Claude Cernuschi, professor emeritus, Art History, and chair, Fine Arts Department, Boston College
Wednesday, March 11, 2026