Q. The painting above is by J.M. Turner and the painting below is by Mark Rothko. How and why are they related?

A. J.M. Turner (1775-1851) is considered a master of European painting and his landscapes and seascapes are utterly rich with color and light. Many of his loosely painted landscapes have abstract qualities, and some believe he influenced the development of modern painting and, in particular, the development of abstract expressionism. Notice the similarities in the Turner above and the Rothko below. It is important to note, however, that the abstract expressionists were not creating abstract landscapes. The development in painting was to pare down both subject matter and technique and ultimately remove reference altogether. Rothko’s paintings are really about color relationships, but you can see that there are interesting antecedents to these incredible breakthroughs.