Obvious references to the output of Rothko's friends and mentors, from Milton Avery to Arshile Gorky, populate these creditable but palpably exploratory works. The flattened sense of form in some of the pictures seems lifted from Avery's pictorial vocabulary. By the time he is well into the 1940s, he has developed a more refined and sophisticated creative persona. Organic forms dominate. The biological forms incorporate quasi-mechanical elements.
Shapes tend to be flattened and shallow.
Spaces are intentionally stage-like. Ties to European surrealists like Yves Tanguy are evident. At almost the same time, Gorky is exploiting the legacy of the ancient world, in works that draw upon the energy of the Greco-Dionysian spirit. Then, in the manner of the best drama, unexpectedly but predictably, the drawn elements recede in Rothko's work and color washes take precedence. But even here the idea of drawing occasionally intrudes into the flow and glow of the colored areas.