Don't get me wrong i'm not here to critique the actors of the play here as i haven't seen the entire play yet. Just what caught me off guard and triggered to leave my critique as a killer is the Alfred Molina's character Mark Rothko's preach toward the young artist. In a period of my life i was thinking the same, in time i realized that to be an artist (or a great artist) you don't need to have all the knowledge of philosophy, literature, art, culture. An artist can be completely isolated from the norms of the world's history finding his/her own language in art without knowing even him/herself. I think the character's aggressive suggestion in this scene would be valid if he was talking to a critic instead of an artist; to be able to have a vivid vision and to be able to articulate the artwork's language/style yes a background could be noble, not to feel better or understand better the artist/artwork but to define better to navigate as if the artist/artwork is only a star in a group of constellations in the sky.
You can critique my critique now as a guardian or as a killer. You choose.
Play: John Logan's Red - Alfred Molina, Alfred Enoch. National Theatre.