Editing Mark Rothko (section)

===Nietzsche's influence===
Rothko's new vision attempted to address modern man's spiritual and creative mythological requirements.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Mark Rothko: Early Years" {{!}} National Gallery of Art |url=https://www.nga.gov/features/mark-rothko/mark-rothko-early-years.html |access-date=February 6, 2020 |website=www.nga.gov |language=en}}</ref> The most crucial philosophical influence on Rothko in this period was [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]''.{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=51–57}} Nietzsche claimed that Greek tragedy served to redeem man from the terrors of mortal life. The exploration of novel topics in modern art ceased to be Rothko's goal. From this time on, his art had the goal of relieving modern man's spiritual emptiness. He believed that this emptiness resulted partly from lack of mythology,{{citation needed|date=May 2013}} which, according to Nietzsche, "The images of the myth have to be the unnoticed omnipresent demonic guardians, under whose care the young soul grows to maturity and whose signs help the man to interpret his life and struggles."<ref>Nietzsche 1872, §23</ref> Rothko believed his art could free unconscious energies, previously bound by mythological images, symbols, and rituals.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Myth-Making: Abstract Expressionist Painting From The United States {{!}} The Tate Gallery, March 10, 1992 – January 10, 1993 |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/myth-making-abstract-expressionist-painting-united-states |access-date=February 6, 2020 |website=Tate Etc. |language=en}}</ref> He considered himself a "mythmaker", and proclaimed that "the exhilarated tragic experience is for me the only source of art".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mark Rothko Paintings, Bio, Ideas |url=https://www.theartstory.org/artist/rothko-mark/ |access-date=March 24, 2021 |website=The Art Story}}</ref>

Many of his paintings in this period contrast barbaric scenes of violence with civilized passivity, using imagery drawn primarily from [[Aeschylus]]'s ''[[Oresteia]]'' trilogy. A list of Rothko's paintings from this period illustrates his use of myth: ''[[Antigone]]'', ''[[Oedipus]]'', ''The Sacrifice of [[Iphigenia]]'', ''[[Leda (mythology)|Leda]]'', ''[[Erinyes|The Furies]]'', ''Altar of [[Orpheus]]''. Rothko evokes Judeo-Christian imagery in ''Gethsemane'', ''[[The Last Supper]]'', and ''Rites of [[Lilith]]''. He also invokes Egyptian (''Room in [[Karnak]]'') and Syrian (''The Syrian Bull'') myths. Soon after World War II, Rothko believed his titles limited the larger, transcendent aims of his paintings. To allow maximum interpretation by the viewer, he stopped naming and framing his paintings, referring to them only by numbers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Important Ideas that Changed Art Forever – Abstract Expressionism |url=http://ww38.onmywall.co/important-ideas-that-changed-art-forever-abstract-expressionism/ |first=Nora |last=Wallace |website=On My Wall |date=February 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170212054902/http://onmywall.co/important-ideas-that-changed-art-forever-abstract-expressionism/ |archive-date=February 12, 2017}}</ref>