Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20150407

Light of the chapel. Raised in russia because he said it would protect me. So really he was a thinkinger. Rose peter baker Gary Williams and annie cohensolal. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. rose we begin tonight with our continued coverage of the Nuclear Agreement with iran a framework deal was announced last thursday. Iran agreed to scale back its probe in return to gradual suspension of sanctions. Critics have said the deal poses a danger to isil security and concedes too much ground to iran. President obama spoke with New York Times columnist tom friedman this weekend. He tried to ease fears and said he would consider it a failure if the country was rendered more vulnerable. The president also called the deal a once in a lifetime opportunity. Joining me now from washington peter baker. Hes the chief whitehouse correspondent of the New York Times. Meter, tell 7qx peter tell me how you see the president s frame of mind with Tom Friedmans interview as he strives to bring real probably the most important negotiations of his presidency. Thats exactly right. We sat down and talked with tom friedman on saturday at the whitehouse to pitch his deal and also to think in larger terms of what it could mean for the region. He clearly has this idea that if they can make this work, if they can finalize the deal in june and get it past obstacles like congress,f0c theres a chance that transforms security in the region and perhaps even begins to change around just a little bit. Hes not counting on that. Hes realistic to understand that irans a complicated country ease put it. Clearly he has ambitions to go beyond simply curbing his Nuclear Program. Rose ambitions include what, do you think. Well he thinks hes argued in fact that should this work, should sanctions be lifted, shouldhhvnbetter as a result, that that would empower more moderate figures in the country and encourage the notion that they want to be part of what he calls the community of nations. And that would therefore perhaps temper some of the more destabling actions that theyve taken over the years, the sponsorship of terrorist orgainizations, the backing. Iran is an important in the middle east right now and the key to so much of the conincome in the United States finds itself tryingx i rose so the president s saying to himself and to the country, we ought to try this. Its the deal of a lifetime. Once in a lifetime because beyond reducing the risk of Nuclear Proliferation in the middle east, it also has the possibility of being the first part of a Building Block to change the middle east. He does see it that way. Now hes realistic enough so he says anyway in the interview with tom friedman to recognize that may not be the case. And its really hard to get a read on iran. Hes exchanged letters with the Ayatollah Khomeini and said hes a tough read with the United States and the west and who knows therefore what that really means. At the same time he said he was impressed by the fact that the ayatollah was parted of these Nuclear Talks that might not have been possible in the past. That in fact suggests a shift in tehran. Rose do we believe that he believes that because a, it hasnt been tried before, it hasnt gotten this far before. And b, that he can still take care of the risk because of inspections and because hes pledged to, as he says, take care of israel to see israels back. Right, exactly right. So look a lot of critics say this deal is too easy on iran, has given away too much, allows him to keep too much of their Nuclear Program. What the president is arguing is look were going to have inspections, inspecting their entire nuclear change from start to finish from the iranian mines through the processing plants. That will in fact provide a measure of surety that they are following the terms 3x of the deal. If not, he says look, this is still a country, ours that is the ayes with 600 million Defense Budget compared to a 30 bindi fence budget for iran and we still have the greater fire power to enforce a military option should that be necessary. Clearly he doesnt want this to be the outcome here. He sees this as the best alternative to more war in the middle east. Rose hes saying a modification of reagans trust but various indemnify. Weve got to trust this agreement to go forward but we have the capacity to verify because we have new inspection opportunities and we are maintaining all of our options that this will not happen. In fact, he said it is a fundamental failure of my administration if in factor israel is more vulnerable because of something that i have done. Thats exactly right. Thats a line of course that very quickly got his opponents attention. Whom say he has already done that and made israel more vulnerable through this keel and through the fight that netanyahu, the Prime Minister of israel has been having lately. He denies that of course. Its funny hem 3x mentioned the reagan line. Thats a version of which susan rice his National Security advisors used recently in a speech to apac in wssington. They says their approach is in fact a variation that is dont trust and verify. So theyre trying to make the case theyre not relying simply on trust. They understand the iranians have cheated before theyve lied before theyve hidden their program before so this is not a question of being naive as their critics accuse them of being. Rose john kerry argues they have new and better inspections than they ever had before in those opportunities where iran has either lied or misled or refused to disclose. Well thats right. Thats the argument theyre making. Its harder to judge though because we dont really have all the details yet what these inspections would be like. For instance the president was asked does this mean inspectionsda can go anywhere any place they think theres suspicion of Nuclear Activity in iran. The president acknowledged there will actually be a mechanism by which iran could object to such a thing. Could they make an appeal in effect happen in a quick enough time that iran couldnt use that process to clean up a suspected site. And those are the kind of questions youre going to hear a lot of in the next few months as they try to finalize this deal. Rose what do you think it mans to him, peter. It means a lot to him. Hes had a rough go on Foreign Policy these last six years. A lot of the grand aspirations he has once articulated now feel beyond him. He hoped to create a new partnership with russia, he hoped to bring most between the israelis and the palestinians. He hoped to disentangle us from war in iraq. All of these obviously have not turned out as he wished. This is one area certainly not the only but one area he could make a big difference if it were to work. If he were to leave office and be the sort of president that changed and transformed our relationship with iran that has been so hostile now for many decades that would be something he would view as an important part of his life and an important thing for the country. Rose maybe a way to earn the Nobel Peace Prize he was given at the beginning of his presidency that he too acknowledged he had done too little to justify it or earned it. He earned the Nobel Peace Prize long before he spent much time in office and he i think would like to find ways of demonstrating that it was a good decision to make. Rose you quoted in a piece on april 2nd, cliff cupchin who said the following. Right now he has no Foreign Policy legacy. Hes got a list of Foreign Policy failures. A deal with iran and the ensuing transformation of politics in the middle east would provide one of the more robust Foreign Policy legacies of any recent presidencies. Its kind of all in for obama if nothing snu else. So for him its all or nothing. Yes. No, i think, cliff cupchin is stating this in rather stark terms, maybe some degree of hyperbole. There are other things the president can point to, particularly for instance his opening with cuba. He opens afghanistan by the time he leaves office and so on. What cliff cupchin is saying for all those disappointments hes had in different areas around the world, this is one thing that would be a Lasting Legacy if it were to work. His critics will say it could be the other way around, they accuse him of being a neville chairman lun if they have a bomb inspite of the deal. Rose we cant afford for him to be wrong and we think hes wrong. Thats exactly right. They point to examples. Innovator korea, obviously president clinton came to deal with them in 1949 to curb their Nuclear Program and they cheated with a bomb. Thats obviously an example nobody wants to repeat. What president obama and the whitehouse would say is theyve learn add lesson from that. This is a more intensive inspection regime theyve put in place. Theyre more aware of what iran is up to and how to curb it. And they said they would not in fact fall under the same trap. Rose what do they say that iran and the u. S. Has different interpretations to what has been agreed to . Well thats i think, they think its to be expected. Thats why they need three more months to put the concepts into writing. A single document that both sides, all sides including the british and the french and the germans and russians and chinese would agree to. In some ways the differences are pretty important. And will have to be subject to negotiation over these next three months. In some ways the differences in a way of presenting it is a matter of spin. The United States is emphasize that iran would have to reduce its number of centrifuges that are spending and enriching uranium by two thirds. Iran is talking about how they get to keep so many centrifuges spinning so eachobviously the more they prefer to sell to their own public. Rose heres whats interesting to me too. You know this as well as anyone that ive suggested. The president was when he made the decision to take the risk of going in after osama bin laden, showed a considerable Political Risk at the time and risk to his presidency. Remember jimmy carter. And he was successful. Even though some people said there are the other alternatives that are less risky, he chose to go with that option and he was right it turned out. Now, it seems like its the same quality in him. He looks at the thing and hes taking the bold action because you think thats the only way to achieve the results necessary. And he understands completely the risk. I think thats right. Hes an analytical person. Reese going to respond to it the way he sees fit. Thats not the way people agree with but once he makes that decision can be a pretty bold one and one he will defend vigorously. In this case what hes being accused of by his critics is being too anyway eve. Not cognizant enough of the thre it poses but it is a Bold Decision and the next three months will be particularly important can he bring it to conclusion and convince congress not to block it. Rose but in the end, its the risk and all that. And the opponents are saying, whats the difference at its most at the core between what the opponents of this and what the president s say. Is it about you simply cant trust the iranians and it comes down to that. Well, a lot of it is that. What the president is saying in effect is the choice is between this deal or in effect risk of war, that the only option then would be military solution that he thinks would not in fact stop their program for very long. Now the opponents say look thats a binary iwyoure trying to fit us into. Youre trying to make us into war mongers and many of them at least say thats not the case the case is hes in for a better deal and they dont, we could keep the pressure up with sanctions, we can get them to give in more than they really have so far. Thats a hard you know, question to answer. Could they come up with a better deal or not and thats going to be at the heart of the debate over the next few months. Rose the president will probably say if it was easy anybody else could do it. Exactly. You come here sit at this table, obviously everybody who is not the 3red have good ideas how the president should do his job. Its an important question and theres a lot at stake. The s or arab friends are wary of iran in the middle east. Theres a reason why this debate has become so pointed and so sharp. Rose peter thank you for joining me. Thank you. Rose peter baker for the New York Times in washington. Well be right back. Stay with us. Rose this month marks two years since pope francis was elected as the pontiff. Hes emerged as an extremely popular figure with many catholics for changing the church homosexuality, unwed couples. Garry wills considers the perspc0vh]t in his new book the future of the Catholic Church with pope francis. Hes a professor at North Western university and im pleased to him back at this table. Welcome. Thank you. Rose you like this pope. I like him a lot of. Although hes disappointing many of us liberals which i think is his job. Whats nice about him is that he learned so much as a provincial of the jesuits and archbishop you. What made me like him he said i was wrong i was a terrible provincial because i didnt hold people together by consultation. He said i was immature they put me in too soon and that was crazy. Rose look at himself with a certain yes. And he knows that he has to listen to other people, not just dictate to other people. What i like about him is that he is disappointing liberals but hes driving the conservatives crazy. Which is probably good too. Rose because he wont go as far as liberals would like for him to go. Right and fast enough and to do things like the sex abuse scandals. He wont join the other factions. He wont join thetxitheyre mean. They want to use dogma to exclude. They want to use ubris to get rid of politicians. He says its not a prize you give to people its a medicine for those who need it. He also said the church is like a Field Hospital after battle. When you go out, you heal the wounded. You dont say how is your diet. Rose exactly right. Whereas the right are like people who go out on the battlefield and shoot the wounded. On the other hand hes not really pleasing to some on the left because like john the 23rd, he believes in popular piety. The trouble is were know it alls and hes not like that and its refreshing. Its so surprising to have a pope w rose a pope who is a christian. A pope who wants to follow in the way of christ. Exactly. I love hes tried to avoid the trappings, the fancy shoes and all of that kind of thing. And the name. He came in second at the conclave and he was asked at the time had you been chosen what name would you have taken. And he had john the 24th. Well hes had time to think since then and hes come up with a much more radical name. Francis was not even a priest. He q was so radical that his followers, immediate followers tried to taint his message as soon as he died. They splintered off to how harsh and christlike his life was. So when francis doesnt wantzget all dressed up in all that regalia, pope francis, my wife and i looked at the reasonable that pope francis wore and it was a patched rag you hadly reasonable. If this pope could do it he would wear it. Rose you first treat the wounds was his idea that we have some very important things here and lets not worry about all the dogma issues. Right now lets deal with the things that are dividing this church. He says we talk too much about church and not christ. About law and not grace. So he wants to change the emphasis. Conservatives of course take hope. They say well he that changed any dogma yet hes just changing the tone. I think a more accurate way of putting it is hes changing the culture. Everything he does signals things like im not above you, different from you, im like you, you know. When he turned down living in the papal palace, it was because he was too loany. He says i cant be alone i need people aroundiso he went back and got a room at the time when he was elected and he goes to the common oneill there. He says mass in the awe adjacent chapel, not in the big vatican basilica chapel altar. So he has really reversed the impulses of power. Power always wants to isolate itself. Be hard to get at. You have to go through a palace and intermediaries. He petitions up the telephone and calls people. Rose theres also this notion that about dogma as a noncatholic. What do you have to do to change dogma. Thats a good question. Often you dont. It just falls out of use. When you look at things like interdict indulgences, bans on usury, all those things just there was never any renunciation of what his position was its just the people of god who are the church just start living in a different way. When people want him to change the teaching on contraception for instance, he knows the catholics overwhelmingly practice contraception. They pay no attention to what the bishops say. The bishops only said it because under the last two post a litmus test for advancing your career was you would never question the teaching hierarchical teaching on contraception, abortion married priests women priests, you need a totally clean bill on those. So they were looking up toward rome. They were not paying attention to what was going on in the pews. The pope when he was asked about contraception praised all them as the pope should and said he was teaching against knee oh malism and against european colonialism of the third world. He said its up to the women to work it out with their confessor. Which is exactly whats happening. Catholics just arent going anymore so thats going to be a dead letter too. Its often the way. Destitute nonobservance is the way you change. Rose is it a fact and i dont know the answer to this that a lot of nonpracticing catholics come back to the church . I dont know about that. I wouldnt be surprised but i think practicing ones are coming to the church more often. And i have noticed even on liberal church, liberal Campus Church that i attend, the tone had certainly changed. I hear less about dogma and more about the poor. Rose what does it mean that hes a jesuit. Well thats a complicated matter. He had a rift with the jesuits. He had planned to be buried with nonjesuits. He blamed it on the fact he was made of the provincial when he was not qualified. He said there was a whole generation of jesuits who disappeared. After the second vatican council, a stream of them left and a very small trickles were coming in. So people who finished their long training and were about to enter the active ministry there was a very small pool of people to appoint to high office. And so he was appoin i know a priest in america who went through the exact same thing and he also says i was not qualified. But they didnt have anybody around. So he was on the outs. He didnt hold the jesuits together who were divided during the dirty war over how much liberation theology they could entertain. But he learned from that experience. And of course he instantly established again his ties with the jesuits, called them up right away went over to their hmku . Gave that wonderful long interview. Rose america. America and the other jesuit journals six hours, it was a six hour session over three days. And he was very frank with them, very open with them. And of course now theyre going tush terrifically proud of him at a che may have owed his promotion by john paul ii to be bishop archbishop you cardinal to the fact that he was on the outs with so much jesuits. John paul despised the jesuits was a lib risk theologian. When went over to cover that for new York Magazine and i talked to the head of the jesuits then. He had a stroke and vincent okeefe, the american assistant was the acting head. One of the reasons why the mope did not allow the jesuits to elect their own leader after that. But he told me, okeefe did my first meeting with the pope as the head of the jesuits i said to him i dont have your experience, i dont have your office, i dont have your depth of theology but i do have a very Close Association with a number of priests who have left and want to be still in service to the church to belong. And the pope was not saying they had left in their good graces so they couldnt be common indicates and he said they broke their oath. Theyre out. Thats like shooting the would noted rather than healing them. Rose why did you stay in the church before francis came. Well theres a lot about the church that ive always loved. And ive always known not always but from an early age, that the hierarchy has often been nutty. And that the people of god have continued doing the work of christ. The priests that trained me and the dominican nuns trained me or great people to whom i owe a lot. And so i never thought, after i was old enough to may attention, that the church was the pope. That if i could disagree with the pope and i still agreed with the church because the church is the peopleand so that doesnt mean that i ever wanted to go anywhere else or that i ever thought i was not associated with them. That is, when ive been on shows where they say youre no better than a protestant and i say you got me, im not. And i dont think any catholic should feel that or our different churches. Were both the church of jesus. In the gospel of luke, the first time the disciples go out on their own, jesus sends them out to casts out devils and heal wounds and preach the gospel and feed people. And they con back and he says well how did it go and john, r6 the apostle says, very well. But we came across a man casting out devils in your name and we made him stop because he wasnt one of us. And jesus says why did you make him stop. If they are doing it in my name theyre not against me. Rose thats something good. So the protestants, orthodox were all doing things in the name of jesus. Were all praying to god and theres only one god. And this pope by the way knows that, that he has said the muslims who pray to allah. Allah is the same god. In his major statement the joy of the gospel he says the quran has great spiritual treasuries and we can learn from it. Now, thats a little different from the papacy i grew under. Rose so many people is conscious of the sexual abuse in the church. Thats a tough one. Thats why i know advocates and victims of sexual abuse. Toker very disappointed in him because they were hoping he could come in and do something quick. There is no first of all theres no remedy with something that horrible. Thats adequate. Its like a number of american japanese refuse to take compensation funds from the government for their internment because it wasnted quiet they dont understand the depth and scope. If they were trying to imagine what could he do its a very difficult thing. What one rule will tell you who qualifies as a victim how you protect the accused, what scale and through what channels do you do restitution. Hes appointing people to improve the procedures. Hes interviewed victims. He did sipped to the u. N. To the Human Rights Commission representatives who said what had not been said up to that time that silently the church always likes en do these thingssecretly. 800 priests were defrocked without telling anybody. So thats giving some idea of the scale but now its coming out in the open. Thats whats so good about this last year. Rose the family. Yes. You know during the drafting of that report from that, an early draft got out to gays and divorce people and people said wait a minute thats not a final document and they were able to watered down the document as some people took as a rebuke to francis. But he said im glad you all spoke out. Thats what we need please do it. But then he published the proceedings and how everybody voted. Up to that time created by the secretary vatican council, john paul made them secret. What they did was write a report, gave it to him and he used it any way he wanted or not. This pope said good, lets have the debate and lets everybody know about it. Now the people going into the follow ups, this is a preparatory one know what ]u they say and how they vote is going to be known to the people and i think the reaction of the people was certainly on the side of the more generous bishops. Rose place java paul ii would have been catholic history. He will be admired. Rose he gets the most attention when they come vatican other than pope francis. He was a very strong figure. I covered his election and that was a time of tremendous hope. On the other hand he was very rigid. As i told you, jesuits break their oath, we dont have anything to do with them. And very autocratic by the1z9n end of his life. He will be admired and also i think pitied because he outlived, George Mitchell was given a private audience with the pope for his peace making in ireland. He told me in his private audience with the pope, very nice monsignor greeted him, they warmly exchanged gifts. When he came out he said to the monsignor, what language was he speaking. And he said english, you know. He was so deteriorating by then you couldnt even tell7o was saying. Now benedict, some people think theres some scandal or something that drove him out of office. I think he resigned office because he had seen john paul. Rose with the ralphages that had been done to john paul. He did not want to put the church through that again. Rose do you have some hope francis will be able to be a powerful force to make sure we do not slide into some kind of clash of civilizations or wars. On that, especially his, he knows and admires muslims. In the joy of the gospel he praises the quran. He knows theres only one god and there are many paths to god. And the holy spirit works in them all. He said the holy spirit, doesnt only work through us, he hasnt forgotten. Rose their his mohammed equivalent to jesus or is jesus equivalent to o they are both prophets beof course jesus is more than a prophet he is god too. Which mohammed is not. The muslims all agree that moses was a Great Prophet, jesus was a Great Prophet and mohammed was a Great Prophet but not god. So thats where we do differ but nonetheless, for us to believe that jesus is god by the home to spirit doesnt separate us from people who think well he wasnt god when he was a prophet and we have a prophet. And spirit works through that prophet. Rose why is jesus because he said so and others said so. I like the fact that jesus wanted to join us. Why did he, norman memorial mailer says i dont believe in a god who doesnt suffer, i dont believe in a god who doesnt come to our side. Thats what he did. He came and all the things we undergo. For god to have creatures that he loves, he would want to come asthats what jesus is. Rose the book is called the future of the Catholic Church with pope francis. Garry wills author of so many other books looking at religion and some of the powerful religious figures. Always a pleasure. Its been great. Rose back in a moment, stay with us. Rose annie cohensolal is here. Her latest books tells the story of one of the greatest parenters called mark rothko toward the light in the chapel. Im pleased to have annie cohensolal b welcome. Good™ to see you good again. How did this come back. It says jewish lives on it as well. I was suggested to write about mark rothko after the book i was suggested to write about an american painter. And these jewish life series has very little, have very little about the past because jews dont have a great history. Do you know why . Rose no. Because in judaism thats a comment which says you dont represent god. So jews arrived in the art world when an attraction started. Theres a beautiful quote by Leo Steinberg about the jewish nation and abstraction. So a lot of jews immigrants actually who were part of the art world, after art became abstract as dealers, as collectors, as artists. But in this jewish life series you have intellectuals, you have philosophers, you have scientists. But very few people from the art world. One is but you know its interesting dont you think. Rose i do, i do. But you said i think that rothko could only have been a painter. There was no profession he could have been. He could have been a writer he could have been a philosopher, he could have been a professor. But his experience at yale was so bad. The man was raised in a talmud torah in russia in the settlement because he saw the poet and would protect him from being drafted in the army. So he was really an intellectual. He was a thinker. His experience at Yale University was so terrible to the time when he arrived there in 1921. It was a time that you know jews were not very well accepted by the establishment. And i found this, you know these letters from dean and the provost saying jews are coming here by thousands. He they get all the fellowships. They have to put it on so rothko was raised as this color and he was really disappointed really disappointed by the fact that he was not fitting in, you know. He understood that it was a collaborative he says, people who were good at sports well raised, well born. He was an immigrant and came to this country. He fought his way in. Rose didnt you say that the status of an artist would at least enable him to create a true identity for himself in the United States. Thats exactly. I think that he became an artist. It was both an epiphany and a necessity. He found art by accident when he went with a friend and kind of you know studio and he found it very interesting and immediately he started to understand that he would follow one of his professors. One was max weber and the other one was milton rose professors and mentors. Exactly. He had a mentor and he followed him for ten years. He started working, he started exchanging. And then he became an activist. Very early on, you know. He was someone who was a role model, who was confronting the institutions, writing letters to the New York Times, writing letters to the metropolitan museum. Rose who were the ten . Oh, thats such a beautiful story. This was a group of guys actually they were nine. The group of the ten were nine and they were all immigrants first generation or second generations. And they were you know, the link was not so much aesthetical one was doing obstruction, the other was doing figuration but it was the social link. They were together. It was a solidarity of immigrants. They were trying to get into the galleries of new york city. Rose they were rejecting the mainstream of art. Exactly yes. In fact, this group of jewish artists they were all jews actually. This group of jewish artists was very important to create a link between the local american artist like thomas and the avantgarde modernist europe pains. Those people were really the ones to enable american art to emancipate from this heavy burden of, you know, copying europe. Rose well get to some of these slides. The 40s was a crucial time for rothko. Yes. Because in fact for one whole year he stopped painting. He puts his pressure aside and decides to write a book. Rose what year. 1940. Its not. Rose he put his art aside and was going to write a book. What the book is about is revisiting the status of the artist. In hrgeographical times. Hes trying to understand what were the golden ages for the artists the france of the cathedrals, the renaissance artists. The rembrandt. He was trying to understand when the artist was considered a wonderful sift sun and he noticed it was not the times he was living out. It was not in 1940 definitely. So he is trying to revisit all that. And after he finishes his book he understands what is art what the the definition of art. In a very unsympathetic way rereading jung and shakespeare. Oning thing which is so beautiful he creates his idea of the artist as a hero. For him the artist is someone who favoredcompliefns. Who is his hero . Rembrandt. Why . Because he did so. And you know, he said recommend ahis patrons were in favor of his english traders of his time. He went on experimenting with light. You know. So what rothko admired so much was a single individual, experimenting against the establishment. Rose how did the holocaust, how did he come to terms with the holocaust. His family left in 1913. You know, he was someone who didnt talk much about that. I think he, his family was secular. He himself apart from the time he went in the talmud torah was not somebody who went to the synagogue. He was a secular jew so his jewish identity was mainly i would say into his respecting the tradition. Like being a teacher transmitting values. Being an intellectual. Another thing is that he really understood that the artist had a mission,] almost like a prophet. And it was, he wrote about it. Its like repairing the world was his work. And what i feel actually very beautiful is that this manuscript that you mentioned, the artists reality which was written in 1940, was not public until 2005. And its his son christopher who was six when he committed suicide in 1970, he found the text, edited the text and published it ten years ago which is rose he found it ten years ago. Yes he found it but just worked on it and published it ten years ago. And this is a document which was very important for my research. Because you know you understand how the man struggling to get into a country to express himself properly is you know more in tune with the artists of the past, rembrandt three centuries before him with the people who lived next door in new york city. Rothko is about displacement and tension, tension between the present and the past, present and the future. Rose what happened in the 60s of the changing Political Climate and how did that impact rothko. When he looked at the world around him. Sure. So hemurals at the four seasons restaurant, this magnificent building on park avenue. He was a very successful painter and everything was going perfectly well for him. So this having to do these murals gave him the idea of doing specific work where the person is surrounded by the art. And sea he worked for a whole year. Then he traveled to europe. He went to see mcmichaelangelo. Then he started thinking and then he started doubting about this project. Then he went to england and he saw a group of disciples of him living on an island and he kind of chuckled. So he decided actually i dont wantc p2 my paintings to be in these see roundings. So hes bringing taking back. Rose theres al society rich diners and all of that. Yes. So he decided that politically he doesnt want his paintings to be in this environment. So he sent back the money, and thats when dominic dominion came. So it was more so he went into, you know he went into experimenting, you know. So he went from being an immigrant to being an artist to becoming a pioneer. Rose and the relationship to Philip Johnson . It was noto, very good. Somebody, i think its Robert Motherwell who was very close to rothko. He said rat cowas a mensch, Philip Johnson was a worldly man, you know. Rose yes, of course. Ny7ut how is your yiddish. Rose noty so good. He committed suicide. February 17. Rose why did he commit suicide. Suicide is like a divorce. Its notwa few months before. There was a process of doubting. Rose doubting his own. 3kwd successful but he had a stroke. He became depressed. He started being unbalanced. He left his wife. He went to live in the studio, so he just lost his environment. And he was not able to paint as much as he did before, and then he started being getting all these visits of people courting him for all over the world. And i think the relationship with his dealer was not a good one. So he felt the pressure and instead of showing the last paintings which were in storage to someone, he went away. Rose having talked about him and his life and his death. Lets take a look and your book. Lets talk about these slides. Show me the first slide. What does it reveal about him. It reveals that in this self portrait hes copying. Its the only self portrait he ever did. Hes copying the self portrait by rembrandt. There are 90 self portraits by rembrandt. This is the only one by rothko. And hes identifying with rembrandt. Im showingm co this in amsterdam. Rose this is 1948. Several stylistic phrases. After he was painting figuratively as we saw before now hes experimenting and its called multiform. So hes going into those rectangles of light floating on top of each other. Then just after that hes been to see the red studio by matisse which arrives from the collection. And then hes going to go to much more clear rectangles. Here is still hesitating. Rose thats 48 nexus which is 1955. Perfect. So then he just had a show in chicago. Wonderful show. One man show. And then hes switching the gallery. This is like typical signature style of mark rothko. The critics say hes decorative. He cant stand the critic call him decorative. His work should be an experience. Everybody who is in front of his painting must interact with them. Its not consumption, its not something you pass by, something which turns you into somebody else. Turns you empowers you. The function of art is much more, much deeper than, you know something that you buy or you look. Rose the next is plate 13. This is 1961. Thats exactly the year that the show, the wonderful one man show takes place at the modern. So now were getting different layers of colors. Rose you see the darker pallet. Yes, but i dont want to think that rat cois going to a darker pallet because hes getting depressed. I dont think it means anything. When rothko stopped experimenting, what he does is finding new pigments, finding new ways of turning his paintings into something almost fluorescent so that he creates a chemical project in which the retina is attracted by the painting. He wanted his painting tothang low. And you are pulled into the art and it becomes an experiment. Rose this is 1969. This is the year before his suicide. Exactly. So its not that it becomes darker because the last painting we think might be red. It doesnt become darker it just becomes more interesting in the interaction he creates with the viewer. Rose the book is called remark rothko. Toward the light. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Visit us on pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org this is nightly Business Reportrt, with Tyler Mathisen and sue herera. State of denial. Stocks clinl, ignoring last weeks dismal data. Why is bad news for the economy so often good news on wall dollar downer why the stronger dollar spells pain for some Smaller Companies with made in. And strained relationship the growing backlash big business faces from some of its biggest defenders. All of that and more on nightly Business Report today, monday april 6th. Good evening, everyone. Sue is off tonight. Wall street returned from the Holiday Weekend and seemed to be in a buying mood. Investors shrugged off fridays weak