No wonder he shot himself.

I have this annoying assignment for my Understand Art course in which I have to write, in 3 full pages, double-spaced, my impressions of the Milwaukee Art Museum (both buildings) and one piece within the museum.  I have several problems with this assignment:

1. I am a very lazy person and am uninterested in this "homework" of which you speak.
2. My "impressions" of the museum are completely irrelevant given that I know nothing about architecture or art.  THAT is precisely why I am taking this course.  If you like, make it the final assignment on which I can use all that I have learned to more expertly give my opinions.
3. Yes, I assume the purpose of the exercise to convince ME that my opinions on things are just as valid, especially given a little time and effort toward the project.
4. But seriously, if you were dropped onto this planet after having lived your whole life in a vacuum, you might need some background on what this building is, what purpose it serves, and what all the things inside are/mean/represent/etc.
5. I know I wasn't just dropped in through a vacuum.
6. I don't like this professor.  He pages through the text and repeats the same lecture every day.
7. Again, I'm lazy.
8. Seriously though.  I chose a Mark Rothko painting on which to expound and while the painting seems to have left some sort of impression on me, I'm not sure I can turn that impression into words because it might just be the type of thing that words can't express.  (Isn't that what art is for?)
9. I guess I could say that in the paper.

Listen, bottom line is this:  I'm lazy, this teacher isn't teaching the way I prefer to be taught, and it's summer, and I'm 6 months pregnant, and I want to know art HISTORY before I'm forced to expound on art THEORY.  (Yes, I realize he just wants my personal impressions, but I am incapable of that level of personal attachment in academic writing.)

That blue looks a little sickly on my monitor, frankly.  The colors look better in person.  

Still, the Rothko painting was the only painting in the museum that particular day that I couldn't get out of my head.  I blame Simon Schama.  Here are the notes I took while viewing the painting:

color field

abstract expressionism

non objective

ground is blue

primary colors

not sure what I'm looking at but it stays with me

man approaches impatiently looks very closely @ painting, arms folded.  don't know what he's looking for.

no purposeful brushwork

texture - N/A

brushwork - N/A

color - all there is

saturated - yes

edges of rectangles are rough, not perfectly defined, eye creates rectangular shape

stays in mind like coming indoors on a very bright day

how did he choose his colors?

I don't understand this painting but I think I'm looking for something that isn't there.

None of that is meant to be poetic or profound.  That's exactly what I wrote, except I drew a box around "choose" up there instead of bold to emphasize the artist's conscious choice to my brain reading it later.

Six days later, further thoughts:

people who say "my kid could do that"

1. they don't say "I could do that" because they know they can't or instinctively know there's something there they could not create
   
2. Painting is deliberate, edges are rough but clear - children lack the control/decision-making - Rothko knew when he was done, made conscious decision to start, how to continue, when to end
   

Alright, fine, but still I feel like I've missed something.  I still don't *get* it.  Is there anything to get?  I certainly like the painting, but it bugs me, as do a lot of paintings when I start looking at them, not just non-objective abstract expressionist pieces.  I always get the impression (oh, there's that word) that a painting is trying to communicate some thought or idea or something to me, and that I don't speak the language.

Someone please tell me what I'm missing.