What Is Art?

I continuously think of new questions to ask myself and to the world around me and this time the question relates to art. What does the artist mean by his art? Haha, how easier it would have been if the artist wrote a paragraph on each artwork of his, describing his feelings and inspiration behind it. 

    

Here the paintings by Mark Rothko have me pondering over what it means. Maybe the yellow could symbolize light and the black could symbolize darkness. The first painting where there is more yellow is from 1954 and the second one where black and yellow are almost equal is from 1963. Yellow can also be associated with knowledge and black can be associated with ignorance. So when yellow was more it could symbolize either his own life or the life around him but as he progressed further into his life he could have felt more ignorance around him or depression in himself. Mark Rothko on February 1970 had commited suicide, so maybe it was his life that was being over powered by shadows and darkness. All this or maybe he just liked to play with colours.