Rothko is said to have carried with him throughout his life vivid memories of the sunsets he saw in his native Latvia and in the places where he later lived. This work also evokes such formative landscapes through its expansive light and color.
The floating rectangles are not uniformly defined forms, but retain visible brushstrokes and subtle variations in tone. The depth and expansiveness created by the delicate harmony of color and form draw viewers into the pictorial space, offering not so much an encounter with the painting as a sensation of being enveloped within it.
This work is known to have been one of Rothko’s personal favorites, as he reportedly refused to part with it even when film director Michelangelo Antonioni expressed interest in acquiring it in the 1960s. A photograph also survives of Rothko posing in front of the painting, despite his well-known dislike of being photographed.