Display and installation in the Rothko Chapel: A contemplative experience

by Eilís Doolan 

Every year, around 100,000 visitors flock to the Rothko Chapel – a non-denominational chapel built on the campus of the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Mark Rothko, the Russian-born American Abstract Expressionist, was commissioned to paint an ensemble of paintings for the interior of the chapel on April 17th, 1964. According to its patron, Domenique de Menil, the chapel was meant to be a “sanctuary for all.” Rothko was not a particularly religious man, but he accepted the commission immediately. By its opening in 1971, he had completed a total of fourteen works—including three monumental black-form ‘monochrome’ triptychs and four dark plum-coloured canvases. Today, the Rothko Chapel remains a one-of-a-kind union of art, installation, and spirituality, culminating in a space which demands contemplation from its visitors. On its website, the Rothko Chapel is described as “a spiritual space, a forum for world leaders, a place for solitude and gathering.” The chapel is a triumph in creating a contemplative experience. It begs the question: how, and why, did Rothko create such a spiritual space? 

Rothko Chapel (Photo by Hickey-Robertson, courtesy of the Rothko Chapel).

Throughout his career, Rothko became increasingly preoccupied with controlling the conditions in which his artworks were displayed. As early as the 1940s, Rothko reportedly supplied galleries with specific instructions about the colour of the walls on which his works were hung and the strength of the lighting in the space. From 1952 onward, Rothko declined all group exhibitions. According to John Elderfield, this obsession with controlling his installations was unsurprising: “otherwise, the most sublime painting could become a mere decoration on a wall.” This was the last thing Rothko wanted. After all, not long after completing an extensive group of red-toned murals for the restaurant for New York’s Seagram building, Rothko withdrew from the commission, fearing his works would become mere backdrops for high society lunches. What became increasingly clear to Rothko was that he wanted more. According to Peter Selz, Rothko’s works asked for “a kind of sanctuary where they may perform what is essentially a sacramental function.” Thus, by the 1960s, Rothko had begun to think about a chapel-like space to house his artworks. 

To say that Rothko wanted to paint religious artworks, or that his paintings for the Rothko Chapel are inherently religious, would be misleading. Instead, Rothko identified with the intimate and contemplative environment of religious spaces. In other words, it was not the religious subject with which Rothko was concerned, but rather a mode of religious seeing. The Rothko Chapel survives as his realisation of this idea. In the space of the chapel, the viewer doesn’t merely look at the work but is compelled to engage in a mode of vision which pushes them towards conscious awareness. The psychological conditions created by the presentation of the artwork are just as important as the physical artwork itself. 

Visitor at Rothko Chapel (Photo credit: Chad Kleitsch).

What is unique about the Houston chapel is that it was Rothko’s first opportunity to truly have a say in the design of the space in which his paintings would be housed. Though the chapel is designed by architect Philip Johnson, Rothko actively participated in designing the interior. In fact, it was Rothko who proposed the octagonal shape. The result of the chapel’s octagonal shape is that the interior acts as a symmetrical system, by which all walls meet each other at an obtuse angle, creating the sensation that they are encircling the viewer. Even when trying to look at just one painting, the chapel visitor is constantly confronted with the painting’s neighbours, who, as a result of the angled walls, are always present in the visitor’s peripheral vision. Even the way in which one enters the chapel is significant to the larger experience. There are two doorways on either side of the south panel, meaning that the viewer enters the space obliquely, and is confronted with either angled or incomplete views of the interior. As a result, one has to swivel around to take in the whole space. Within the octagon, it is impossible to see one canvas without seeing the others. In other words, the space refuses to give the viewer a conventional single viewpoint. In his book The Rothko Chapel Paintings: Origin, Structure, Meaning, Sheldon Nodelman describes his own experience in the chapel as “having eyes in the back of one’s head.” While the space requires physical movement from the visitor, one is left with the sense that you are “never allowed to come satisfactorily to rest.” 

Rothko Chapel, interior plan/layout (Photo credit: archdaily).

The connection between museums and sacred spaces is not a new one. For years, writers have engaged with the popular metaphor of museums as sacred temples. Carol Duncan’s phenomenal 1995 Civilising Rituals: Inside public art museums is one such example. In most museums, expected behaviours are not dissimilar from the way we act in churches – we are expected to be quiet, to move slowly, and to focus our attention on contemplation or study. Rothko’s chapel seems to literalize this temple-museum association—both in terms of its architecture and its viewer experience. Indeed, the metaphor proves useful to understanding Rothko’s chapel. For one, Rothko’s proposal of an octagonal shape – a shape which finds precedent in early orthodox Christian buildings, seems significant. The sombre monumentality of Rothko’s black panels for the chapel, too, seems to encourage the viewer to be quiet. In their size, they demand attention. In their ambiguous darkness, which prompts the viewer to look closer, to scrutinise whether what they see really is just black paint, they demand study.

View inside the Rothko Chapel, with skylight visible (Photo: Chron).

The lighting in the Rothko Chapel, too, is crucial to the viewer experience. Rothko was particular about the use of lighting in exhibitions of his work. According to one anecdote, Rothko snuck into his own 1955 exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery to turn down the lights. In the case of the chapel, Rothko rejected the use of any artificial lighting, explaining the incorporation of the large skylight as the only source of illumination. Given the darkness of the monumental monochrome panels, the lack of light might seem perverse, at first. In dim lighting, the panels appear completely black. In reality, the colour of the panels is the result of the layering of different plum and red hues. Yet, in the chapel, we aren’t awarded the ease of seeing this. After entering, one's eyes struggle to adjust to the interior darkness. As a result, the space demands the viewer’s heightened attention. Using a skylight as the only source of illumination also makes the interior sensitive to changes in daylight – a cloud passing overhead has the power to drastically shift the atmosphere of the interior. Once again, the space makes pictorial decipherment difficult, pushing the viewer toward dedicated contemplation.

Painting by Mark Rothko for the interior of the chapel (Photo credit: archdaily).

The Rothko chapel is a truly unique union of artwork, architecture, and installation. In it, the viewer is faced with a series of difficulties—these are in no way a shortcoming of the space, but instead are the result of deliberate choices made by the artist, aimed to push us toward intense contemplation. Within the chapel, the viewer is confronted with their own inability to fully grasp the effect of the chapel, in which their body, their sight, and their memory seem to fail. Just as you think your eyes have adjusted to the dimness of the interior, and you have managed to register the darkness of the panels, a cloud passes overhead, and you are left unsure whether you are still seeing with the same visual capacity as before. Ultimately, the Rothko Chapel is a profound space, in which art and meditation meet. The gift of the Rothko Chapel is that it allows visitors to gain a unique experience through quasi-spiritual aesthetic experience. 

Bibliography

Antin, David. “the existential allegory of the rothko chapel.” In Seeing Rothko, edited by Glenn Phillips and Thomas Crow, 123-134. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2002. 

Barnes, Susan. The Rothko Chapel: an act of faith. Houston: University of Texas Press, 1989. 

De Menil, Domenique. Foreword to Contemplation and action in world religions: selected Papers from the Rothko Chapel colloquium ‘Traditional modes of action and contemplation.’” Edited by Yusuf Ibish and Ileana Marculescu. London: University of Washington Press, 1978. 

Duncan, Carol. Civilising rituals: inside public art museums. London: Routledge, 1995. 

Elderfield, John. “Transformations.” In Seeing Rothko, edited by Glenn Phillips and Thomas Crow, 101-122. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2002. 

Nodelman, Sheldon. The Rothko Chapel Paintings: Origin, Structure, Meaning. Austin:University of Texas Press, 1997. 

“Room 3: The Seagram Murals.” Tate Modern. Accessed Friday 25 October 2016. 

Rothko, Mark. Writings on Art. Edited by Miguel López-Remiro. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.