Color Field painting is typically executed on a large canvas and intended to be viewed close-up, so the viewer is fully immersed in the color environment.
Rothko's technique is expressive and atmospheric, revealing on close inspection a rich tonal range and subtle color variation.
Rothko used color to convey a range of sensation near to what he termed religious experience. Color in this sense is the vehicle that transports the viewer to her deepest and most primal emotions.
Rothko's paintings darkened in the late 1950s, as he accentuated the concept of vanishing boundaries, where two colors similar in saturation and value merge seamlessly into one another, as the line between them appears to vanish.
Rothko also began to paint to the edges of his un-framed canvases as a means of dissolving final borders in attempt to represent the infinite.