London – Ornamento

Return to Rothko’s Rooms

By: ornamento.blog April 20, 2017August 10, 2021

Art, inspiration, museums, TravelArt, London, Mark Rothko, Rothko's Rooms, Tate Modern GalleryLeave a Comment

I plan to return to London soon and one of the items on my list of things to see is the Mark Rothko exhibit at the Tate Modern Gallery. I had heard about the paintings Seagrams commissioned from Rothko to hang on the walls of their new Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City. I know that the paintings never made it to the restaurant and wondered what happened to them.

Well, on my last visit to London, I learned that they are in a room at the Tate Modern Gallery. The pictures you see here are not meant to be accurate representations of the paintings, but rather, to give you an idea of their scale.

A placard accompanying the exhibit stated: “ROTHKO was influenced by Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library in Florence with its blind windows and deliberately oppressive atmosphere. Rothko reportedly commented that Michelangelo ‘achieved just the kind of feeling I’m after – he makes the viewers feel that 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’.

Wall Text Accompanying, In The Studio Exhibit, Tate Modern Gallery, London, England.

I am not sure how these paintings would have looked in an upscale restaurant, but I did not feel trapped in the room where they are displayed at the Tate. In fact, I found it hard to leave. The paintings have a singular calming effect. Viewers can get close to them or sit across from them and look as long as they want.

If you want to learn more about Mark Rothko and these outstanding paintings, watch film documentary Rothko’s Rooms. The film charts his life, artistic development and includes commentary from his family and friends. Rothko’s Rooms used to be available on YouTube. You can order it from Amazon. Just click on the graphic below.

For additional information on Mark Rothko, go to artsy.net’s Rothko page here.

The Kiln Waster

By: ornamento.blog February 9, 2017February 14, 2017

Art, London, pottery, Travel, V&AArt, ceramics, London, pottery, Travel, V&ALeave a Comment

I had jury duty and when you are on jury duty in Philadelphia, you bring a few books, maybe a crossword puzzle, some snacks and whatever else allows you to pass the time because there is a lot of waiting before you are either selected to serve on a jury or dismissed. You serve for one day or one trial.

I brought a couple of old catalogs from a pottery auction in the early 1990s. I spent my waiting time pouring through pictures of work by the likes of Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, and Mary Rogers.

Which brings me to The Kiln Waster. The Kiln Waster is the opposite of inspiration. If it were possible to have a front-end car collision in a kiln, The Kiln Waster would be the result. See for yourself:

Kiln Waster refers to tin-glazed earthenware dishes that collapse in a kiln during firing and fuse to each other and to the kiln furniture. The above example is from Delft, Holland circa 1655.

I came face to face (or face to plate) with the Kiln Waster at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I had gone to the V&A to see its well-known jewelry collection. I did not know, however, was that the V&A is also home to a fabulous, HUGE (huge as in rooms and rooms and shelves upon shelves) collection of ceramics and pottery dating from ancient times to the present day. And while pottery from the Americas is not largely represented, you’ll find just about everything else in the V&A collection.

Unfortunately, the V&A does not have a book or catalog of the collection for sale in its museum shop. I would would have loved to buy one. But the museum allowed visitors to take pictures and I snapped and gawked and gawked and snapped. If you get to London, run to the V&A to see this astounding collection. The next time I am in London, I plan to go back. If you want to search the collection online, press here.

Here are some pictures of pottery that fared better than The Kiln Waster