Its rubbish like this - along with piles of bricks and unmade beds - being described as art that gives modern art such a bad name. If he is an artist lets see him try a to produce something like a Canaletto or a Velasquez or even a Monet.

John, London,

Not the most moving of his work, in terms of moving *me*. But delicious, nevertheless.

Art that makes me swoon.

Laura Roberts, London, UK

1 not being currently aimed at living purposes, art is a specifically human disposition.
2 Everyone is an artist.
3 To revere such a work, whatever its quality and beyond personal satisfaction, shows the degree of potential idolatry of human kind

reinrag, paris, france

Its simple, powerful and beautiful!
I think it allows the viewer to see whatever they want to see in it, which is very thoughtful of Rothko, as many paintings are painted to see what the artist saw in whatever he/she painted.

Jenny, Durham,

I think it's beautiful. I love it.

Lily, London,

Having also sat in a gallery full of Rothkos, the experience was wonderfully peaceful and was accompanied by a complete lack of thought - the mental freedom was quite liberating.

Jules, Devon, England

He's stumbled on an interesting effect by soaking the paper. It looks pretty.

Jay, Mansfield, England

Paintings like this are all about feeling - having seen a gallery full of Rothkos, they were moving, calming, beautiful and strangely musical

Nairn, Glasgow,

the blue bit is like stuff and the red bit is like things. Wow, the guy must be like some kind of genius type person.

tony, dublin, Ireland

The 'painter' is the person looking. The 'art', the ideas are that person providing the ideas.
Most abstract art is a sheet of blank paper. The human mind is so emotionally imaginative it 'creates' something out of nothing.
And, no person ever 'sees' anything literally.

Leigh Vernier, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

It's a riot of colour and form, that little bit of yellow on the left hand side, that is where the painting really is!

Gid, Norwich, England

rothko SCHMOTKO. Little lobotomy paintings. I wonder how long it took him to figure out which side of the paintbrush to use. Not as long as it takes for some of the so called art lovers to tie their shoelaces. Mass stupidity is alive and well.

Andrew McCarthy, Cork, Ireland

Interesting at the time, but now ubiquitous, it has lost it's message now that it has been mass reproduced and copied, like so many modern art works. A great shame.

naomi, Ipswich, UK

The red block presses down onto a personal astral window space. Intensely cosmic.

David, Cambridge, UK

rothko's canvases say as much about their contemporary landscape - political,social - as well as being engaging and moving works in their own right. i'm looking forward to seeing his work exhibited in london . . . i travelled to paris nine years ago specifically to see same

Barbara , London,

Self indulgent, talentless, lacking in any message, boring, futile, neurotic and laden with pointlessness. Bur enough about me. The picture is just not worth commenting on.

Andrew McCarthy, Cork, Ireland

Its boring, a five year old could do it and it probable only took about 10 minutes is not exactly a piece that took years of hard work but if it was it doesn't show.

Brooke, Southampton, Uk

i can't comment as i haven't seen the original and from experience a reproduction of a work like this is never the same, not even close. if any readers comments are submitted from viewing anything but the original then i would hesitate to call them valid. Like Klein's blues, which are magnificent.

gary, oxford, england

Refuse to explain? Anyone can lay down blocks of colour and call it art. What a con. More ego than ability.

Anne Reddan, swindon, UK

It brings emotion gushing into my otherwise empty existance.

Schmoo, London, UK

I remembered seeing one of Rothko's painting once without knowing anything about his work. I was overwhelmed by the intensity, never knew art can be like that and it stirred something inside me. It changes the way I look at art. If I was searching for meanings in the painting, i found inside me.

Simon, Singapore, Singapore

Hi is my favorit artist. It's beautiful

Ntasa, Novi Sad, Serbia

I simply love it, never seen work from this artist before. The radiant colour is breathtaking.

Nina, Sandefjord, Norway

His early works are best. He doesn't proclaim 'things, or statements, or communicate what a photo can convey.' His work demands a viewer's calm mind - stand straight in front of it, for minutes ideally, within about a half meter away. Your mind ENTERS the painting - the best meditation one can buy.

Ted, New York, New York

Rothko's my favorite painter.

You don't see "anything" in them. You just feel a purity of emotions pouring in. The same kind of feeling you get when you close your eyes and see either deep black-blue (when you're about to go to bed) or bright yellow-red (when you're facing the sun in the backseat)

Philip Dhingra, Austin, TX, United States

I really didn't get Rothko until I sat under one of his enormous canvasses. It's not the sort of art to be thought about, just felt.

Annie, Bristol,

The intensity and depth of apparent colouring abstracted in the conflict of visceral friction vibrations blurred in the solar line pull and beg our mental vision for a comforting sense of form hidden in flat expressions, not of our will. Or, one could say, "it gives banality a bad name!!

paul, manchester,

The emperor has no clothes.

Kate Corwyn, Bristol,

It's the sort of graphic you'd expect to see at a swedish home ware store - in the woolly carpet department.

Deep analysis of its inner meaning - to me - simply sounds fluffy ... and doesn't wash.

andy blank, rotherham, england

rubbish!!!! no meaning nor expression...art should covney meanings and feelings, what does this convey exactly ? someone please explain

C. Kroustis, London, UK

Another highly successfull effort to hoodwink the victims of upper caste fashion founded on the ignorance of the elite..

Lee Pefley, Brent, usa

It's not about thinking, it's about feeling.

Oonagh, Hong Kong,

My five year old could do as well.

Jim Laflin, Bicknoller,

Oooo... Tod Corby... I think you've hit on somthing. What if the entire gallery were painted like a Rothko. And Tina Rhea, I agree with you re: Ruskin's comment but surely Red Green would have made the lines straighter. Primarily with the use of duct tape. All in all it is a pleasing painting.

Marg, Richmond, VA

This is very much like the Emperor's New Clothes.

Kevin, Chatham, UK

Actually I see a landscape in it. Dark grass and a red sky. Maybe the sun just went under the horizon?

Henne, Drachten, the Netherlands

It's pleasing to my eye because of the colours and the relationship between them and the balance between the horizontal blocks. It reminds me of the sea but that's an afterthought I sought out to give it meaning. There's no need for it to represent anything. It's colour and mass.

Steph, Llanelli, UK

I never really got Rothko until I saw his stuff on canvas hanging on a gallery wall. When you see it close up in that environment it is strangely moving. Until then it just looked like colourful daubs but when you see it as the artist intended it really comes into its own.

Dan Sainty, London, England

Standing in front of a Rothko with the block expanses of colour reaching my peripheral vision is like listening to music. While one of my senses is engaged in a beautiful pursuit that does not demand too much of my brain, my emotions become unfettered by extraneous surface noise so i can simply feel

Helen Drew, Brighton,

It is upside down ...

Paal, Sandnes, Norway

It looks like a litmus test.

R Seymour, Columbia, USA

We would not even be looking at this picture were it not for the efforts of the CIA to promote american abstract expressionism during the cold war. It is not here on merit.

john cheall, Nottingham, uk

I agree with Lisa regarding the connection with sea and sky.By taking away the detail but leaving the impression it allows the imagination to soar and enter places that it may not with a realist painting.

Lynne, Pershore,

Modern art is all Jackson Pollocks

GJB, Slough, Berkshire

Reading everyone's adoring comments means I must be missing something. I have always thought Rothko's works a total waste of canvass and this one is no exception. At least its not one of his black 'paintings'!

Shari, St Peter Port, Guernsey

I feel the viewing public is largely conned and swindled by modern art. Many I have spoken to feel exasperated. The problem might be that we have no way to measure the importance or value of a piece of work or even to understand why it should be considered a significant piece.

Paul Hogan, Marbella, Spain

How about a non-pretentious complementary comment?

Andrew, York, UK

I love it. It's like an invitation, like someone saying 'hey have you looked at red recently?' . And then being led into what dark smudgy blue edged with bright pink evokes - for me, excitement. Suddenly, the mundane is subtly transcended and I'm back in a child's world of play and wonder.

Clare Butler, Totnes, England

Rothko's work makes a soothing change from the noise and personal exhibitionism of much 20th century art. It's more like a concentrated experience of something in the real world; colour, depth, tone, mood.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

I love the Hell & Heaven in it.

Eugene, heidelberg, germany

Red and blue. Beautiful...sort of

Peter Osler, London,

Too much Worcester sauce in a Bloody Mary

Dom, London,

The Emperor's New Clothes in paint.

Alan Charman, Auckland, New Zealand

It is almost identical to one produced when the tape input to an early computer controlled paint sprayer I was working on jammed.
There has to be an element of craft skill as well as imagination for anything to be truly art. In this case he admits the imagination lies solely with the viewer.

D Cage, Highworth, Wilts

The flood of pure colour captures the intangible,in contrast to man made constructs which are just noise in the lives we lead.
Rothko lifts us out of worldliness and into pure sensory realms.
A world of imagination where the spirit can soar.

v.svendsen, drangedal, norway

Passion goes down to calm through a phase of changing line, which can be some big event happen in ones life

Patricia, hanghou, China

Last September in Rome I went to an exhibition of 100 of his works from early paintings (inspired by Italian medieval frescos) to his last. Seeing the progression of his work, I appreciated and was impressed by his creativity. You can't see that from one painting. I'm an engineer, not an arty-type

Dennis Jones, North Vancouver, Canada

bright and cheerful, vibrant red with sensible blue,
it lifts ones spirits

michele, newcastle, england

It will probably look very nice when he finishes it.

Lissa F, Sacramento, USA

I think this about deep love,from crazy to calm.The whole picture seems like in the hell,from flame to glacier.

Carrie, Shanghai, China

It's impossible to judge such abstracts from a pic. In front of the real thing in the right context it could be impressive, but usually quickly forgotten.
For me it is the beginning of an uninspired era in painted art that, for the most part, is still lasting. (exception for Lucian F. of course)

robert berkhout, vancouver, BC

I'm reminded of Ruskin's comment on a far better painting by Whistler, that he 'never expected to hear a coxcomb ask 200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face'. I've seen worse, of course, but I'm also reminded of the Canadian humorist Red Green: 'If I could do it, it ain't art.'

Tina Rhea, Greenbelt Maryland, USA

Vivid colours and a very optimistic view of life as bad feelings(blue) are kept in the prison, at the bottom and the thin but strong holding lines choose what makes us feel free and happy(red), the untammed passion for life.

Nataly, Cyprus,

It's clearly the midriff of a WREN in a blue skirt wearing a silk red top.

Jack, Ballymena, NI

We have similar creations on some of our walls--only they are where we have painted colour samples to select a colour for the walls. Maybe I should send the house to the art gallery.

Tod Corby, Perth , Australia

I like it. Nice colours.

Sandra, Sydney,

This art piece self-evidently represents Kant's notion of practical reason within a finitely rational being: pure reason is tarnished and encroached upon by the pulls and allure of felt inclination.

Lucy Richmond, St Andrews, Scotland

Two competing life forces of red Action and blue Serenity meeting in the Iridescent pink of fulfilled life - one should chase the Pink, but never catch it.

David, Sydney, Australia

it's for seeing
not thinking

kirby grimes, bridgehampton, us

It's two block-head friends having a conversation or perhaps even sharing a kiss.

Jaime Wynn, New York, United States

A pleasant enough wall decoration to decorate a public toilet or urinal , but art? You must be joking! The result of Hampstead pseudo intellectuals with too much public money to spend and no common sense!

Frank, London, UK

This, to me, signifies a rather personal journey. The first thing I think of when I see this piece, is obvious; my mind connects it to the closest thing I have seen in life, which is the sea and the sun-washed sky. To complete this, I put in my memories; a replay of contrasting yet connected moods.

Lisa , London, England