Mark Rothko

Born Markus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, taught in cheder before the family emigrated. The late paintings are two or three soft-edged rectangles of colour hovering on a ground, and he wanted them hung low and looked at close.

The other candidate, and a harder case than Newman because he left far less to quote. Gorlin argues the late work carries Zoharic themes. ⚠ Rothko himself insisted the paintings were about "basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom" and grew angry at readings that made them decorative or occult. The chapel in Houston is the place to test it, and it is non-denominational on purpose.