Beginning in the late 1940s and continuing until his death in 1970, Mark Rothko made abstract paintings characterized by hovering rectangular forms. His paintings of the late 1950s, such as Black over Reds, were marked by the use of dark colors with subtle contrasts that created a sense of shifting space and depth. Here, the rectangles appear to alternately advance forward or recede into space depending upon where the viewer is focusing his or her attention. Rothko achieved this effect by building up many layers of paint, sometimes in thin washes of color, sometimes with a paintbrush that was somewhat dry. Rothko painted Black over Reds during a period when he was enjoying significant commercial and critical success. The year after its completion, the painting was shown in the 29th Venice Biennale, one of the most important international exhibitions of contemporary art. Yet, like other abstract painters of this period, Rothko struggled with the limitations of the public reception of his work. In an impassioned statement made in the 1960s, Rothko admonished, “The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them,” and that those who focused only on the visual element of color, “miss[ed] the point.”