I use colors that have already been experienced through the light of day and through the state of mind of the total man. In other words, my colors ar… - Mark Rothko

The activity of the artist makes him less socially conditioned and more humans. It is then that he is disposed to revolution. Society stands against anarchy; the artist stands for the human against society; society therefore threats him As an anarchist. Society's logic is faulty, but its intimation of an enemy is not. Still, the social conflict with society is an incidental obstacle in the artist's path.

We are concerned with similar states of consciousness and relationship to the world.. .If previous abstractions paralleled the scientific and objective preoccupations of our times, ours are finding a pictorial equivalent for man's new knowledge and consciousness of his more complex inner self.

[the first ingredient of his work]... is a clear preoccupation with death - intimations of mortality.