#73 is an example of Rothko’s mature style, displaying his successful development of stacked rectangles and muted colors. From a profound desire to express “basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom,” Mark Rothko investigated myriad painting techniques from Surrealist automatism to Color Field painting. For Rothko, the abandonment of specific imagery allowed for a poetic, universal evocation of intangible subjects, inspired by so-called primitive art and mythology. In hiss mature work, glowing and hovering fields of color allow viewers the experience of becoming absorbed into the pictorial field of the canvas.