Why my visual argument sucks:

I approached this visual argument assignment much like many of my tutees claim to approach their own papers: with little planning or clear design. While I didn’t compose this assignment while watching a Cardinals game, something I hear often in the WL, (although I did make this last week, when I was pretty loopy on massive amounts of anti-nausea medicine), I didn’t follow the structured assignment described in Wysocki’s “Opening New Media to Writing” either. I think this definitely shows, since the argument in my work is unclear. The text ultimately just distracts the viewer from Rothko’s piece, and the text itself isn’t anything incredibly compelling. Some design troubles also led to my ultimate dissatisfaction with my visual argument. Personally, this is not my favorite Rothko piece. In fact, I think the most beautiful and poignant pieces are those that incorporate darker colors (some of my favorites are White Center (1950) and Untitled (1953), both of which you can view at http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/). The text, however, was too difficult to decipher on portions of these paintings. Consequently, while Rothko remains my favorite artist, I am not easily persuaded by my visual argument because this painting in particular isn’t one I would necessarily deem “silent poetry”.