Untitled

Two broad green rectangles float against a deep blue field, divided by a horizontal band of blue that cuts across the composition. The painting is untitled, made in 1957 with oil on canvas, and is held at the National Gallery of Art. It came into the collection as a gift from the Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. The painter, Mark Rothko (1903–1970), an American artist, worked within abstract expressionism, a movement built on large fields of color and open emotional expression. Looking closely, the edges of the green shapes seem to breathe against the surrounding blue, their soft boundaries blurring rather than cutting sharply into the dark background, giving the whole surface a quiet, glowing sense of depth that rewards slow, sustained looking rather than a quick glance.