Modern art (post 1910) in America has found itself in a very unexpected, however unique position. Unlike the aesthetic constraints that bound certain artists to their time periods, modern artists have had the freedom to express their creativity in forms that were not defined by any specific canon of ideals. Starting with Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, inventive minds from all around the world have found the beauty in the ordinary, the beauty that states that anything can be art (Tate). Two artists that interpreted this ethic in their own ways were Mark Rothko, the self-proclaimed nonconformist, and Andy Warhol, the pop icon. Both by clutching onto the newfound freedom of their fields were able to create art that emoted prominent intents whether it be through obvious and discrete forms.

Mark Rothko painted his piece Newman in 1949. Rothko’s painting as a whole falls into the category of abstract expressionism; he was self taught and focused on mainly on simplicity of color in his field painting and playing with the ideals of surrealism and non-representational art.

According to art historian Michael Zurakhinsky, Rothko was “Highly informed by Nietzsche, Greek mythology, and his Russian-Jewish heritage [with art] profoundly imbued with emotional content that he articulated through a range of styles that evolved from figurative to abstract.” Newman is a more uncommon piece in Rothko’s portfolio because it is a portrait rather than a general play with colors and space. He is often categorized in the same class as artist Barnett Newman and as a result of this and their eventual relationship, the two went on to create portraits of each other. When you think of a portrait today, one usually imagines an identical recreation of the face with details of great verisimilitude, but when Rothko does a portrait, he puts his own aesthetic into the image. In his brushstrokes, he uses the color gray for what I am assuming is simplicity (a concept he is known to finesse) on the entire image without great attention to shading or linearity in particular. The figure doesn’t even have the outline of a face, rather he has the designation of eyes, nose and a mouth with clearly a hat and a shirt although these things are not realistic whatsoever. We know it is Newman from the patchiness of his hair and the dramatic, sunken eye sockets, but it is not his ideal representation. There is little regard to light, color, and form, but there are nods to why each of the three is either absent, or utilized in its certain way.

Andy Warhol is world famous for his pop art, as depicted in his Last Supper. Pop art uses “modern popular culture and the mass media as a subject, especially to critique or to ironically comment on traditional fine art values,” (Tate). In the Last Supper, Warhol utilizes one of the most famous images in not only Christian art, but in the world to make a statement about how lost these values seem under the increasing influence of globalization. Underneath the bright General Electric, Dove, etc. logos, the image of the last supper becomes dull and lost. Due to the mass media stating a claim on the visual images we intake on a daily basis, Warhol found it necessary to point out the flaws this could be creating a visual series. Warhol even made a series of last supper paintings to represent its cliche in the world of images. Similarly to Rothko, the figures of Jesus, Judas, and the disciples resemble the classic work by Da Vinci, but it is all a basic outline of the room rather than realized, colorized figures (Chimel and Kreiger). On top is the bold advertisements that truly draw your eye with their bright colors, looking as if it is stamped by these ads. According to the Guggenheim’s examination of Warhol’s collection of Last Suppers, Warhol superimposed these popular images over something sacred, like Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, to create a hybrid of the sacred and the profane. The “heretical irreverence” has been muted through repetition.

Both Rothko and Warhol use the modern age to create images that are not realistic looking, however have very real intents and functions. Unlike the renaissance or even the impressionism that came before it, these artists did not focus on making figures that were renowned for their beauty or importance, rather, these images found their position in an era that allowed total freedom of color, form, and expression.

References:  http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573

https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/moma_learning/docs/MAI7_2.pdf

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-rothko-mark.htm  

http://pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/warhol/

Chmiel, Frank, and Larry Krieger. AP Art History. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Research & Education Association, 2012. Print. REA.