Rothko, Untitled (Navy and Black), 1969
If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas. They are the symbols of man's primitive fears and motivations, no matter in which land or what time, changing only in detail but never in substance, be they Greek, Aztec, Icelandic, or Egyptian. And modern psychology finds them persisting still in our dreams, our vernacular, and our art, for all the changes in the outward conditions of life.
If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas. They are the symbols of man's primitive fears and motivations, no matter in which land or what time, changing only in detail but never in substance, be they Greek, Aztec, Icelandic, or Egyptian. And modern psychology finds them persisting still in our dreams, our vernacular, and our art, for all the changes in the outward conditions of life.
Our presentation of these myths, however, must be in our own
terms, which are at once more primitive and more modern than the myths
themselves—more primitive because we seek the primeval and atavistic roots of
the idea rather than their graceful classical version; more modern than the
myths themselves because we must redescribe their implications through our own
experience. Those who think that the world of today is more gentle and graceful
than the primeval and predatory passions from which these myths spring, are
either not aware of reality or do not wish to see it in art. The myth holds us,
therefore, not through its romantic flavor, not through the remembrance of the
beauty of some bygone age, not through the possibilities of fantasy, but because
it expresses to us something real and existing in ourselves, as it was to those
who first stumbled upon the symbols to give them life. Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be
explored only by those willing to take risks.
Mark Rothko
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