It’s hard to tell when painting morphed into interpretive literature.  But for some time, an illuminating narrative focused on the artist’s mood, personality, and political beliefs rather than on the subject painted or the technical skills employed have been the primary literary themes of “art critics.”  Certainly by the time Mark Rothko painted his black on black canvases in 1964, interpretation of the artist’s work could be anything the critic wished it to be. That is why art reviewer Blake Gopnik, writing for the Washington Post, could choose to see Rothko’s canvases as a statement about Afro-Americans’ skin, interpreting the pieces in ways Rothko probably never dreamed of. Gopnik wrote, “I realized that, even when we're looking at abstraction, we have an almost moral imperative to go beyond our cliches about what blackness means.” Going beyond the traditional interpretation of Rothko’s works as...(Read Full Article)