1. Jeffrey Weiss, “Rothko's Unknown Space“, inMark Rothko, ed. Jeffrey Weiss, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, p. 305f.
2. Clement Greenberg, “After Abstract Expressionism”, inThe Collected Essays and Criticism.Vol. 4, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 131.
3. Mark Rothko,Writings in Art, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006, p. 125 (my italics). I will on several occasions refer to Rothko's own statements about his art. I do not thereby imply that the artist's private, prior intention gives some privileged insight into the final meaning of his work. The intention is indeed what comes to expression in the very work itself. Given the profound knowledge of his own works, Rothko's statements are interesting but only as responses alongside other responses, not as elucidations of a work's (mental) causes or its private meaning. Cf. Stanley Cavell,Must We Mean What We Say, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 225–237.
4. Samuel M. Kootz and H. Rosenberg, “The Intrasubjectives”, inReading Abstract Expressionism. Context and Critique, ed. E.G. Landau, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006, p. 156.
5. For a presentation of symbolic theory of art, see Jason Gaiger,Aesthetics and Painting, London: Continuum, 2008, pp. 63–76.