one is mark rothko. it is interesting, don't you think? charlie: i do. have said that rothko could only have been a painter. there was no other profession. annie: he could have been a writer, a philosopher, a professor, but his experience at yale was so bad. the man was raised in a settlement in russia because his father thought it would protect him from being drafted into the russian army. he was really an intellectual. he was a thinker, but his experience at yale university was so terrible. it was a time when he arrived there in 1921, jews were not very well accepted by the establishment. i found these letters from the dean and the provost -- charlie: at yale? annie: jews are coming here by the thousands and getting all the fellowships. we have to put a ban on the jewish element. rothko was raised as a scholar and was really disappointed by the fact that he was not fitting in. he understood it was a club of wasps, he said. it was for people good at sports, well raised, wellborn. he was an immigrant. he came to this country at the age of 10. he fought hi

this is like typical signature style of mark rothko. the critics say he's decorative.stand the critic call him decorative. his work should be an experience. everybody who is in front of his painting must interact with them. it's not consumption, it's not something you pass by, something which turns you into somebody else. turns you empowers you. the function of art is much more, much deeper than, you know something that you buy or you look. >> rose: the next is plate 13. this is 1961. >> that's exactly the year that the show, the wonderful one man show takes place at the modern. so now we're getting different layers of colors. >> rose: you see the darker pallet. >> yes, but i don't want to think that rat co-is going to a darker pallet because he's getting depressed. i don't think it means anything. when rothko stopped experimenting, what he does is finding new pigments, finding new ways of turning his paintings into something almost fluorescent so that he creates a chemical project in which the retina is attracted by the painting. he wanted his painting tothang low. an