Chapel’s Lack of Religious Symbols Is Its Spiritual Key

On a typical midweek day, a woman dressed in exercise clothes sits cross-legged on the tile floor of Houston’s Rothko Chapel, her palms up, her eyes closed. She wipes away tears.

Around her, 14 large dark murals take up most of the wall space in the octagonal chapel. The paintings are monotonic, and lack the symbolism of any particular religion.

That absence is the key.

The Rothko Chapel, which turned 25 this year, is so small yet stands for so much--an understanding among followers of different religions, the blending of art and religion, an appreciation for protectors of human rights.

The unpretentious landmark on a tree-lined street in Houston’s Montrose area comfortably holds no more than 200 people. Since its consecration in 1971, the chapel has been the site of interfaith weddings, baptisms, a bar mitzvah. It has served as a temple for Hindus and Buddhists, a mosque for Muslims.

One of the city’s premier tourist attractions, the Rothko Chapel has drawn visitors from all over the world, including the Dalai Lama. A guest book lets them scribble their thoughts about how the chapel has touched them.

“No images--but I see. No sounds--but I hear,” writes one.

“Such a jewel,” scrawls another. “The ability to finally know what I want to ask my God.”

It certainly isn’t like that for everyone who enters the chapel, named for the late Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko, who was asked to create a meditative environment but who never lived to see the chapel. He committed suicide in 1970 at age 67.

When it opened 2 1/2 decades ago, the chapel was viewed by many as an oddity. Here was a building with the status of a church, but without a steeple or cross. It contained paintings that had no religious representation. “The artsy people liked it very much, but the others felt, ‘Well, what’s this?’ ” said Nabila Drooby, the executive director.

The chapel was a vision of art patrons John and Dominique de Menil, who settled in Houston in the 1940s after fleeing Nazi-occupied France. They commissioned Rothko and architect Philip Johnson.

Out of a reflecting pool by the chapel’s entrance rises Barnett Newman’s “Broken Obelisk,” dedicated to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

“I very much believe that the chapel is the womb and the obelisk in front of the chapel is virility,” said Dominique de Menil, 88.

She chose Rothko to provide the sanctuary’s only adornment because she liked his use of color and knew there would be no religious symbolism in the paintings.

From the beginning, she and her husband imagined a place where anyone would feel welcome. “The chapel is unique in the world because it belongs to no one and to everyone,” she said.

During the 1970s, the chapel evolved into a rallying place for the human rights causes close to her heart. In 1981, its 10th anniversary was celebrated through the handing out of human rights awards of $10,000 to 12 individuals and groups. Five years later, the $20,000 Oscar Romero Award was developed in honor of the murdered archbishop of San Salvador.