Mark Rothko wanted you to be totally immersed in his works, so the best way to view his paintings in person is to stand right up against them, so you can't see beyond the canvas.
This way you will be completely submerged in the feeling he is trying to generate. As an Abstract Expressionist, he sought to induce a particular feeling by paying rigorous attention to formal properties such as colour, shape, balance, depth, composition and scale.
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Here in White Cloud Over Purple (1957) he applied the paint in thin layers to add luminosity and reduce depth, and made the canvas vast in scale to have that all-encompassing, meditative effect.