The painting that made Tracy Emin sit down and weep
Mark Rothko and Tracey Emin are two very different artists. While Rothko was inspired by mythology and grand spiritual journeys, Emin’s creative catalyst was often solipsistic, informed by significant moments in her own life. Having risen to fame as the enfante terrible of the Young British Artists, through works like My Bed (1998) and Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1995), she mined some of her most intimate moments, unflinchingly broadcasting them for the world to see.
When she was 22, she came across abstract-expressionist Rothko’s work, and although their styles and inspirations hugely differ, she found herself rocked by the piece. She was stood in front of Untitled (Red, Black, Orange and Pink on Yellow) (1954) and began to weep. As she told the BBC, although Edvard Munch has always been her favourite artist, it was Rothko that resonated most with her.
“I was walking through the Tate, and I came across this pink and yellow abstract thing, sat down, and cried,” she recalled. “Because it resonated, because I felt it, and I think you should feel from the art, it shouldn’t just be what you are looking at, you have to feel something.”
She continued to say her reaction caught her off guard. “I didn’t know why I was sitting in front of this painting crying, I had no idea,” she reflected. “And then I read about Mark Rothko, and I totally understood. I also really like his early works, his figurative works. It makes lots of sense why I should love this painting.”
Rothko was able to inspire such profound emotion because his works were so abstract. Void of any explicit symbolism, his coloured shapes allowed viewers to project whatever came to them onto the paintings. Often, two colours would be played against each other, giving his work a sense of movement that appealed to Emin.
“It was like looking at the most beautiful sunset, but I felt it, I felt this painting shake,” she insisted. “It tremored, it wasn’t standing still when I looked at it, I could feel it vibrate. This Rothko painting was unbelievable what it did to me. And later, when I found out about his life, and him committing suicide, I wondered if I felt that sadness.”
Rothko’s struggle with depression mirrored Emin’s own. Her most famous and controversial work was borne out of a breakdown she suffered in 1998. After a bleak four-day period where she didn’t leave her bed, she used the “mess and decay” of her room in My Bed, one of her most divisive works to date. Both she and the late Rothko had that unique ability to incite genuine emotion in their viewers, which, while wasn’t always positive – was always impactful.
