Greetings and welcome to the Wednesday, May the 14th, 2025 edition of Denison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.

I'm Chris Elkins, narrating today's daily article written by our friend, co-founder, and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison.

A painting by Mark Rothko just sold at auction for $37.8 million.

It's a vertical rectangle with two large horizontal blocks, one in maroon and the other in black.

A link to it is in today's podcast episode notes.

There's nothing else on the canvas.

With all due respect to Mr. Rothko, we might wonder if we could have painted this ourselves.

Perhaps that's the point.

When I taught philosophy of religion at various seminaries, I always included a section on art

history in the belief that artists

reveal our culture to us in ways we often cannot see otherwise. Rothko is Exhibit A. The Russian-born

painter immigrated to the U.S. in 1913 at the age of 10. His father's death a few months later

left the family without financial support

and led Rothko to sever ties with his Jewish religion. Fluent in four languages, he was a brilliant,

though erratic student who viewed art as a vehicle for emotional and religious self-expression.

In his lifetime, he experienced the Great Depression,

faced anti-Semitism, and lived through two world wars

and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

Heavily influenced by Nietzsche's emphasis

on the tragedy and emptiness of life,

the dark colors and abstract expressionism

of his later work focused on transcending the individual and an almost

...