Red-y or not

A bit of a red theme to the weekend – friends who had recently ‘had their colours done’ are now insisting, tongue in cheek, that everyone can wear red.

Orhan Pamuk, My name is Red

An absolutely wonderful read. Set in Istanbul in the sixteenth century, this is a romance, a mystery and a series of fables told from a range of perspectives – including the main protagonists, a group of manuscript illustrators, as well as those of a dog, a horse… and the colour red:

‘My dear master, explain red to somebody who has never known red.’

‘If we touched it with the tip of a finger, it would feel like something between iron and copper. If we took it into our palm, it would burn. If we tasted it, it would be full-bodied, like salted meat.If we took it between our lips, it would fill our mouths,. If we smelled it, it’d have the scent of a horse. If it were  flower, it wqwould smell like a daisy, not a red rose.’

Rothko – the late series, Tate Modern

The highlight for me was the assembled Seagram murals – the Tate’s holdings combined with a number of pieces on loan – an artificial construction, admittedly, as it is not clear which panels Rothko intended to be used – but effective nonetheless.  In the previous, smaller, Tate Rothko rooms, the overall impression given was of a cell for meditation. In a larger space and hung higher, as Rothko is said to have intended, the cumulative effect of the panels is more monumental and impressive.

Individually, the apparent simplicity of the works is misleading – as another room, in which Rothko’s paiinting techniques are examined illustrates – there is a varied use of texture and of layers of colour – so that, for example, a halo or eclipse effect separates out blocks of colour. In the panel shown above, the differentiation comes from what appears to be a pale ‘bloom’ on the background, which pushes the more solid block into the foreground.