Subjective Critique

Mark Rothko's "Number 14" is an Abstract Expressionist painting that he created as a series of paintings he created to evoke raw emotion, The piece, however, left me unsatisfied. Several reasons why I do not like this painting have occurred to me. First, the painting seems unfinished. There is no subject matter for this artwork which leaves me feeling like the painting is a work in progress (although I know this to be untrue). I also do not like the fact that this artwork is symmetrical and uses only geometric shapes. This makes it rather boring and I would not have stopped in a museum to study the painting. Finally, I think that the painting could use just a little bit of depth. I like the flat, matte look, but there is no sense of foreground or background; and, in fact, the red stands out more because of it's bright warm color.

In my opinion, the colors and brush strokes, are appealing, but the painting needs some work in order to look finished. I felt that this painting was a bit boring without subject matter, although I like how the lines are very muted and rough. It is flat and could benefit from some type of object to create a sense of foreground and background. I like the overall contrast of the piece. The symmetrical balance and oversimplified nature of this artwork makes it something that I would not purchase, and yet it has potential to be recreated into something more visually pleasing. 

I will keep the overall color scheme, although I plan on creating an asymmetrical, silhouetted figure to bring out the background. I will possibly add something below in the foreground to "finish" out the piece; yet depending on how strong the silhouette is, this may not be needed. I want to keep the overall colors and brush strokes similar to the original; however, I will add just a little variation to the colors, or to the thickness of the paint between layers, to give more depth. I want to keep it a fairly flat, matte painting still, so not much variation will be needed.  I plan on using acrylic paint to achieve these things in my final piece.