MARK ROTHKO’S “THE SYRIAN BULL”:

AN ABSTRACT MYTH

Scott Burrows
ART 100: Aspects of Art
December 4th, 2018

MARK ROTHKO’S “THE SYRIAN BULL”:

AN ABSTRACT MYTH
1. Introduction

At the Wadsworth Museum, I was unsure what kind of art I wanted to write about and it

was in the Surrealism Gallery that I decided to pick my painting. I remember being astounded by

the detail of Salvador Dali and fascinated by the simplicity of Joan Miro. All were beautifully

confusing, but when I saw “The Syrian Bull” by Mark Rothko it stuck out like sore thumb.

Painted in 1943, the oil on canvas painting depicts an anamorphic yellow figure on a desolate

landscape (rather a lack of landscape) with a grey blue sky. Knowing Rothko’s later work, I was

fascinated and desperately wanted to understand more about the painting.

2. Artist

Markus Rothkowitz was born in Russia on September 25th 1903. His family immigrated

to the United States in 1913 as his brothers were about to be recruited into the Russian Army and

they were moved to Portland, Oregon. In America Rothko learned English as his 4th language

and went to Yale dropping out after his second year. Rothko moved to New York City in 1923

and started to study and practice painting. He never attempted to make “tightly rendered mimetic

Renaissance-style paintings” and at the time, virtually no one was creating abstract art (Chave).

For the first decade-and-a-half of his career, Rothko’s focus was very modern, with a focus on

urban environments and landscapes. “The Syrian Bull” then exists in a transitional period for

Rothko, moving from this abstract but modern aesthetic, growing more and more abstract,

touching on mythic themes until he ended up with the washes of color he would eventually

become famous for, which he started in about 1948. Rothko had separated from his wife in 1943

for the last time, as he was working on “The Syrian Bull”. The show it was initially a part of
received mainly negative reviews. To quote the New York Times critic Edward Alden Jewell,

“You will have to make of Marcus Rothko’s ‘The Syrian Bull’ what you can” (Breslin).

3. Visual Elements

“The Syrian Bull” has its roots in Surrealism. Surrealists would often begin paintings in

unconscious ways and not know what they would be creating until it was already in process.

What is notable about this painting is the figure of the “Bull” itself. One can still see the single

line that makes up the basic shape of the figure, made using a graphite pencil, because the

graphite can still be seen. It is probable, that he began by drawing a long unbroken squiggly line,

which he then subsequently colored in. Rothko plays with color in this piece in a way that can

directly connect to his later works. The way blended yellow, blue, and pink which make up a

majority of the painting bounce off of one another draws an emotional response from the viewer

and not a happy one. Shape is utilized in a uniquely abstract way. In the top left, an ovular disk

that connects down to eight skinny, floating legs with a curl of a black claw at the bottom of each

one. Then another oblong body part rising to the right side, with what is most likely feathers

perturbing from behind it. In the center right, a yellow cylinder with what could be brown ribs

displayed and center left, in front of more feathers, the most strongly realized red, blue, and

brown structure appearing to stab the yellow figure. The piece has a matte, slapped on feel, that

can be seen in how the paint falls over the pencil marks that trace it’s shape, but can still be seen

in some areas. The whole figure kind of looks as though it is melting, or as if it is a bunch of

creatures mixing themselves into one thing. Contrary to most of his other pieces at this time,

though Rothko’s lightness is notable. There is not a whole lot of black included. Instead there is

hints of grey and a thinness to the paint that renders the canvas flat.

4. Content
 This work is considered one of Rothko’s mythic works. For this period, Rothko went

about focusing on painting mythical figures using his abstract approach. He was strongly

inspired to do this by Friedrich Nietzsche’s book The Birth of Tragedy which he would refer to

almost religiously. In it Nietzsche argues how ancient Greek Tragedy is the purist form of art

because of the way it perfectly encapsulates the duality of existence through the use of the gods

Apollo and Dionysus. Their differences in style, but equal purity in art render the classics able to

describe existence in a way that late Greek society couldn’t through pure logic. Rothko wanted to

take that idea and use it to describe his own existence and the world around him. This myth is an

obscure Persian story referring to Mirtha, the god of celestial light. “By slaying a bull, [they]

created the world” (Breslin). The possible slaying depicted in “The Syrian Bull” could in a way

be Rothko’s attempt at personal rebirth, but he is really unable to fully express this with the

depth and openness that his later works did so well. It “associates exposure with danger and art

with hiding” (Breslin). The piece does not say anything directly political. Rothko’s focus was

really on the internal. It feels a bit more like Rothko’s challenge to his contemporaries trying to

make art that is simultaneously historic and universal in its feel.

5. Emotion

My first introduction to the work of Mark Rothko was not through his paintings at all. It

was through a play by the title Red by John Logan. It fictionally documents Rothko at what could

be considered his artistic peak, during the eight months in the winter of 1958 and the spring of

1959 when he was painting his murals that were to be in stalled the Four Seasons restaurant of

the new Seagram Building in New York City. It shows his anger, his callousness, his nihilism,

but also his heart. It gave me a fascination with his work and that of the abstract expressionist

movement.
 So when I saw “The Syrian Bull” at the Wadsworth I was immediately frustrated. To start

with the painting is messy and inarticulate. I had no clue what it was supposed to be and the title

only made it more confusing. How is this supposed to be a bull? It looks nothing like one. It

looks nothing like anything, really. Secondly, the color pallet of the piece made me mad. Rothko

uses primary colors but they are all in a pastel tint that feels slapped onto the canvas. When I saw

that the painting was by Mark Rothko, it actually put me a bit at ease as I believe he probably

would have been happy to know it caused such a reaction. What really made me want to write

about it was the severity of my reaction.

Miro and Dali astounded me at their strange beauty. I did not see any beauty in Rothko’s

painting and it brought up a genuine human emotion in me that was so to the opposite spectrum

of all the other paintings in the room. It also had this perfect balance of what I knew already and

a side of Rothko I was unfamiliar with. It felt challenging to look at this picture as much as I did

because it is so ugly and so vague and to be honest part of me never wants to look at it again.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Breslin, James E. B. Mark Rothko: A Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Chave, Anna C. Mark Rothko: Subjects in Abstraction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
Rothko, Mark. The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,

2004.