Here is an artist [Mark Rothko] who tries to capture his notion of reality, his idea of truth, in every painting...
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...the notion of reality he expresses is so vital and internal...
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The pictures must have their own reality--they are not a mimicking of the visually perceptible world around us...
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What a dream to paint what one saw and felt, one's own sense of the truth...And this is what Rothko wished for: to paint the truth as one feels it...(emphasis mine)
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...he makes clear that the self-centered work of the artist--the expression of his or her personal truth--...
The very title of the book, The Artist's Reality, speaks to this desire. As Rothko emphasizes repeatedly, the essence of painting is, to him, the artist's unique perspective on the world and the communication of that perspective to the observer. To enter a painting is to enter the artist's reality...
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3. It is our functions as artists to make the spectator see the world our way—not his way. (This is from the 1943 Rothko-Gottlieb letter to The New York Times.
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When he speaks of abstraction, he apparently means...the distortion of the subject matter to conform to the artist's notion of reality rather than to that perceived through our vision. (emphasis mine).
The Artist's Reality Philosophies of Art, introduction by Christopher Rothko (2004) edited edition of Artists Reality, Mark Rothko circa 1940-41.
