"Blue and gray"

Mark Rothko (Marcus Rothkowitz) - Acrylic On Canvas - 203 x 176 cm - 1970 - (National Gallery of Art (Washington, United States))
When asked about the 'grey and black' paintings, Rothko said, quite simply, that they were about death. They are desolate, empty images, but they also afford a richly ambiguous visual experience. Their landscape like qualities, with the black at the top — an Arctic wasteland under a vast and empty sky — is at the same time more deathlike.