{"data":{"id":"897","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":897,"topgoose_id":5405,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":897,"title":"Four Darks in Red","display_artist_text":"Mark Rothko","display_date":"1958","accession_number":"68.9","dimensions":"Overall: 101 13/16 × 116 3/8 in. (258.6 × 295.6 cm)","medium":"Oil on canvas","department":"collection","classification":"Paintings","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene M. Schwartz, Mrs. Samuel A. Seaver and Charles Simon","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eMark Rothko, \u003cem\u003eFour Darks in Red\u003c/em\u003e, 1958. Oil on canvas, overall: 101 13/16 × 116 3/8 in. (258.6 × 295.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene M. Schwartz, Mrs. Samuel A. Seaver and Charles Simon 68.9. ©Kate Rothko Prizel \u0026 Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFour Darks in Red\u003c/i\u003e exemplifies Mark Rothko’s darker palette of the late 1950s, when he increasingly used red, maroon, and saturated black paints. Four dark rectangular areas of different proportions dominate the composition, simultaneously emerging from and receding into a luminous red ground. Rothko’s method of layering many coats of paint, along with the special reflective qualities of his color mixtures, gives his paintings an inimitable depth and incandescence. When this nearly ten-foot wide canvas is seen close up (as the artist intended), the viewer is engulfed in an atmosphere of color and intense visual sensations. The weightiest dark color is at the top of the canvas while a softer roseate glow emanates from below, creating a reversal of visual gravity. Rothko believed that such abstract perceptual forces had the ability to summon what he called “the basic emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, and doom.”\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Three horizontal rectangles in dark red and black tones, with blurred edges, on a red background.","alt_text":"Four horizontal bars, varied in width with soft edges, stack against a deep red background. Three of the bars are a brownish red, while the thickest bar, second from the top, is black.","visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T15:57:38.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-21T01:00:02.584-04:00","images":[{"id":92465,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/897/68_9_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"1132","type":"artist"}]}}}}