Much of the power of Rothko's late paintings stems from their deepening and more subtly-felt contrast in values. But even the most casual viewer can sense that it was his personal traumas that led to the diffused, shifting fields of color and his obliteration of the social and historical "me."

Still, in an important sense Rothko's immigration from Russia, the death of his father, leaving the newly-transplanted family struggling in a foreign land, his two broken marriages, his drinking, his commercial failure, and his disavowal of his children are only tangentially relevant to the completed paintings, which have shimmering proportions and immortal longings, and have created a place, a light, and a play of values outside of time.