You probably know them. Large color field paintings. But Rothko wouldn’t approve of this description. They aren’t abstract color studies. They are nothing like Ellsworth Kelly’s slick designer swatches or Frank Stella’s fun cyclic wheels.

Rothko’s works breathe. When in front of one I am compelled to take a seat. Thankfully there has always been a bench close by. If there wasn’t I would have sunk to the floor. There is no time for self-consciousness when entranced by a Rothko.

When in front of his work a vibrational transfer occurs. The somatic reaction is nearly immediate. It is curious and unsettling – like a magic trick being performed on my unsuspecting body.

And what does my body hear? An urgent whisper to awaken. Rothko’s color patches loom like condensed forms of the natural world – pulsing through the canvas, my body, and the room. All other artworks fall in step behind it.

They feel beautiful. Life’s runway on full display.

And yet I learned today that Rothko created them with a different purpose in mind. “Behind the color lies the cataclysm,” he said in a 1959 interview.

The cataclysm?

I thought his works were a siren call to enjoyment, instead they were warning bells for disaster. That’s a serious misinterpretation.

Sometimes I wonder if at the end of my days I will have misunderstood it all.