A legendary 20th century artist, Mark Rothko assigned himself the task of creating a representation of the human tragedy through the most abstract painting there is. His stated goal: cure the world’s ills. His tools: a colored paste that he made himself, in secret, covering larger and larger canvases and creating spaces that could absorb the spectator. Declaring that he was not an Abstractionist, but a Materialist, Rothko has always eluded definition. This documentary reveals his unconventional path, one of the most surprising ones in modern art.