Word: rothko
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Skepticism was finally assuaged after then Harvard President Nathan Pusey '?? visited Rothko. A keen-minded Yale dropout, Rothko facilely picked up on Pusey's religious interests and proceeded to affix the Passion of Jesus to the murals--the darker ochres of Panels #1-3 (the triptych) were the colors of Good Friday and the Last Supper, while the brighter magenta pink of Panel #5 was representative of the Resurrection. Pusey, thoroughly impressed by Rothko's analysis and enthusiasm, advised the Corporation to vote for the murals' installment...
...Cohn adds "I think it would be very limiting to interpret those murals as Rothko's depiction of the Passion. I never got the sense that that was his limit on their significance and I never got the sense that he wanted to put into words their explicit significance." After all, Rothko himself later pointed out that the murals' crimson backgrounds refer to the "spirit of Harvard," and the subject matter of the murals is a series of H's, contracting and expanding in rhythmic progression...
...Indeed, the murals were passed to Harvard via a Deed of Gift that spanned five years, beginning on January 16, 1962. The University paid an estimated $10,000 for Rothko's material, travel, and transport expenses, and received what was appraised justifiably by the renowned artist as a series of paintings worth $186,000 in total...
...rest of the story plays out literally like an irreversible reaction. Rothko, who in addition to being radically innovative with subject matter, was also extremely experimental with media, haphazardly using a variety of unstable compounds such as egg whites and cheap Woolworth's paint. For the Harvard murals, Rothko mixed ultramarine, a stable blue pigment, with lithol red, a highly non-colorfast red hue, to yield the then crimson background. The murals' appearance today is the result of fading due to ultraviolet radiation that shone through the bay window of the penthouse. Furthermore, after the installation, the penthouse was turned...
...other four hang frozen beside and behind it, shourded in plastic. Panel #2's current blue hues look somewhat dolorous. But Ms. Cohn offers assurance "that the ensemble as a whole still works" even if some unity is lost with the fading. "They still have the solemn resonance that Rothko wanted. A very inspiring ensemble still. Yes, they are damaged, but no, they are not wrecked...