He was one of the 20th century’s greatest artists, whose hypnotic paintings grew darker and darker. Jonathan Jones travels to Texas to take in Mark Rothko’s final, misunderstood masterpiece – a haunting chapel the artist never lived to see
Jonathan Jones
The Guardian, Monday September 1 2008
Darkness dawns … Rothko at work in 1961. Photograph: © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / VG Bild Kunst, Bonn 2008
‘Can you see it?” says the man in the Hawaiian shirt, pointing up at the purple canvas towering over us. “I’ve never been here before,” he says, his shirt standing out wildly in the cool grey of the octagonal concrete room. “But I saw it in a matter of minutes. Can you see the figure of Jesus Christ our Lord on the Cross?”
I look politely into the misty bloom of the gigantic abstract work. It contains no images whatsoever, Christian or otherwise. I mumble something noncommittal, and he goes around pointing out Christ to everyone else in the room. They soon leave. I walk around staring at one colossal rectangle of sombre colour after another. A student comes in and kneels before a vast triptych that people choose to see as an altarpiece.
This is the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. Art surrounds you here. Paintings on a majestic scale dominate each of its eight walls. There is little to interrupt their power, just the bare plaster, a few benches, and a couple of cushions on the floor. There are doorways, but they don’t lead anywhere, except into a tiny alcove containing nothing.