No. 6 (Yellow, White, Blue over Yellow on Gray)

No. 6 (Yellow, White, Blue over Yellow on Gray) is a 1954 oil on canvas painting in a color field style by Latvian-born American artist Mark Rothko created in 1954. After his experiments with mythological themes and Surrealism to express tragedy he turned to depicting irregular and painterly rectangular regions of color.^[1]

No. 6 (Yellow, White, Blue over Yellow on Gray)
Artist	Mark Rothko
Year	1949
Medium	Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions	240 cm × 151.8 cm (94 in × 59.8 in)
Owner	Private collection

Description

The painting depicts three blurred blocks of yellow, white and blue opposed against a gray ground.^[1] He made the various layers of the painting dry quickly, without mixing of colors, so that he could soon create new layers on top of the earlier ones.^[2][3] No. 6 (Yellow, White, Blue over Yellow on Gray) belongs to Rothko’s late period when he for seven years painted in oil only on large canvases with vertical formats. Very large-scale designs were used, in Rothko's words, to make the viewer feel "enveloped within" the painting.^[4]