{"id":535525,"date":"2026-03-14T08:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T08:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/535525\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T08:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T08:29:17","slug":"mark-rothko-returns-to-florence-in-exhibition-inspired-by-renaissance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/535525\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Rothko returns to Florence in exhibition inspired by Renaissance"},"content":{"rendered":"

During his first trip to Italy in 1950, with little money to his name, Mark Rothko stood awestruck before early Renaissance frescoes. He remained at Florence\u2019s San Marco museum, a former Dominican convent, until dusk, contemplating the vivid Fra Angelico religious scenes that line tiny monastic cells. Apparently unsatiated, he returned the next morning for another visit.<\/p>\n

The art Rothko saw during that trip shaped his output, as an exhibition in the Tuscan city aims to show. Opening at the Palazzo Strozzi on Saturday, Rothko in Florence showcases 70 of his works, including iconic canvases from the Tate in London, Pompidou Centre in Paris and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. A handful are shown at two satellite sites: alongside Fra Angelico\u2019s murals at San Marco, and in the Michelangelo-designed vestibule of the Laurentian Library.<\/p>\n

The exhibition is co-curated by Christopher Rothko, the artist\u2019s son, who describes it as the realisation of a long-cherished dream. \u201cWe have been discussing this show with institutions for 15 years,\u201d he said. His father, he said, would have loved the idea. \u201cThis is the fulfilment of his highest aspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Mocking of Christ with the Virgin and Saint Dominic by Fra Angelico<\/p>\n

Rothko returned to Italy in 1959 and 1966, visiting heritage sites and museums he could previously admire only in books. He toured the Forum in Rome and the Pompeii archaeological site, and saw frescoes by Giotto in Assisi and Piero della Francesca in Arezzo. \u201cAt the time, he really was able to holiday on five dollars a day,\u201d Christopher Rothko said of that first trip, when the New York-based artist was accompanied by his wife, Mell.<\/p>\n

Fra Angelico\u2019s frescoes, which make their cells vibrate with spiritual intensity, arguably inspired inspired the Rothko Chapel paintings, for which Rothko created numerous dark canvases. There is a clear connection between the austere grandeur of Michelangelo\u2019s vestibule, which Rothko first saw in 1950, and his large-scale Seagram Murals, commissioned eight years later for a Four Seasons restaurant in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Michelangelo] achieved just the kind of feeling I\u2019m after,\u201d Rothko told a journalist of the Murals, some of which are now displayed at the Tate Modern, in the bar of an ocean liner bound for Naples in 1959. \u201cHe makes the viewers feel as though they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Child damages \u20ac50m Rothko in \u2018unguarded moment\u2019 at museum<\/a><\/p>\n

As part of the show, 75 x 55cm studies for the Seagram Murals are being shown in the Laurentian Library vestibule where, hung in that narrow space, they intensify the sense of confinement. In a cell at San Marco, beside a Fra Angelico angel that seems to glow from within, a Rothko canvas with a beam of yellow shooting across layers of crimson quivers with corresponding intensity. In another cell, free-floating blotches of pastel colours perfectly match those used in the Renaissance painter\u2019s mural of a blindfolded Christ.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, Christopher Rothko organised a more comprehensive Rothko retrospective in Paris. For Florence, he has carefully selected works that both document the evolution of his father\u2019s style up to his shocking suicide in 1970 and highlight his connections with Italian art. At the Strozzi, a 1936 painting of an architectural interior dominated by towering pilasters resembles Michelangelo\u2019s New Sacristy at Florence\u2019s Medici Chapels. The angrily simmering Four Darks in Red (1958) recalls the ochre hues commonly used for walls in ancient Pompeii.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The vestibule of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, designed by Michelangelo, with two works by Rothko on display<\/p>\n

\u201cChristopher [Rothko] decided not to ask for certain paintings for the Paris exhibition<\/a> because they would relate much more to Italy,\u201d Elena Geuna, the second co-curator, said, citing Four Darks in Red as an example.<\/p>\n

Visitors have to buy separate tickets for each site, with a full price of \u20ac15 for the Strozzi and a reduced price for ticket holders of \u20ac7 at San Marco and \u20ac5 at the library. They will have access to some of Rothko\u2019s greatest works. A loan for Gray, Orange, Maroon No 8 (1969), believed to be worth up to \u20ac50 million, was finalised only about six months ago, following a restoration after a child scratched it while on display at Rotterdam\u2019s Boijmans museum.<\/p>\n

A request for a throbbing, 3 x 4.5m untitled yellow on orange from the Bilbao Guggenheim, Rothko\u2019s largest non-mural, was initially rejected five years ago before the museum changed its mind. \u201cIt had only been loaned once before,\u201d Geuna said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his first trip to Italy in 1950, with little money to his name, Mark Rothko stood awestruck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-535525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}