Western Civilization Life, Death, and Term Paper

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This is perhaps most evident in the case of Mark Rothko.

The romantics," wrote Rothko early in his career, were prompted to seek exotic subjects and to travel to far off places. They failed to realise that, though the transcendental must involve the strange and unfamiliar, not everything strange or unfamiliar is transcendental (Rothko 84).

The key then, for Rothko, was to develop a form of "transcendentalism" involved locating the strange and unfamiliar in every day life. Eventually, this led Rothko into his signature style - that of the "multiforms," two to three blocks of contrasting colors set on a large canvas. The overall effect is one that enraptures the viewer, thus giving rise to a spiritual experience. What was important for Rothko and his followers was to create a form of art that would transcend the aesthetic realm that had limited art for centuries.

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They wanted art to extend to the spiritual realm, as well as the every day.

In the end, Rothko himself became a victim of this yearning for an all-out transcendence in art. He ultimately committed suicide, most likely out of frustration for the ultimate possibility of the project. Still, the large body of work that Rothko left behind is testament to an important moment in the history of Western art. It marked both a continuation of and a breaking away from the Romantic yearning for transcendence, and is thus a hallmark of the movement known as Modernism - a movement that confronted the past by identifying its shortcomings and forcefully breaking away from them.

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