painter Mark Rothko, the high priest of grief and loss who spent the latter part of his

career turning out a succession of sublime and sombre canvases that spoke, as he put

it, of the ‘tragedy of being human’.

Born in Dvinsk, Russia, Rothko emigrated to the United States at the age of ten and immediately

grew to despise the aggressive good cheer and steely optimism of his adopted land.

Appalled by the sentimentality around him, he learnt to make art that was insular, unrelenting,

sombre and oriented towards pain.

Rothko’s favourite colours were a burnt burgundy, dark grey, pitch black and blood

red, occasionally, alleviated by a sliver of yellow.

In 1958, Rothko was offered a large sum to paint some murals for a soon to be opened

opulent New York restaurant, the Four Seasons on Park Avenue.

It was, as he put it, ‘a place where the richest bastards of New York will come to

feed and show off.’

His intentions for them soon became clear: ‘I hope to ruin the appetite of every son

of a bitch who ever eats in that room,’ and to that end, he set to work on some large

black and maroon colour fields expressing a mood of terror and archaic anguish.

However, shortly before the paintings were due to go on display, Rothko called up his

patrons, explained his feelings - and sent back the money.

He then gave his paintings to London’s Tate Gallery, where they were hung in a quiet airy

contemplative, religious-seeming space, that enclosed the viewer in an atmosphere of meditative

mortification.

The paintings remain ideal companions for visitors who drift into the gallery at their

wits’ end, who might be working through the loss of a partner or the ruin of their

career - and who need more than anything else to know that they are not alone.

Rothko’s canvases - though focused on the darkness - are never themselves depressing

to look at because they lend our difficulties dignity and legitimacy.

To bathe in their atmosphere is to gain a distinct sense of comfort, like lying in a

tender person’s arms who says little other than a modest ‘I know’ in response to

our dejection and loss.

With Rothko as our guide, our pain and sorrow matters a little less.

.We can start to rediscover a taste for life when we see that we’re not alone in finding

it hard; that it is acceptable, even necessary, sometimes to hate the smiling ‘bastards’

who so annoyed Rothko.

We can build friendships - imaginative or real - around shared honesty about dark things.

Unhappiness is just - as wise artists have always liked to remind us, and despite the

suggestions of all those confident-seeming people congratulating themselves in the world’s

fancy restaurants - very normal indeed.