At a primal level, your brain just doesn't think the details of Genghis Khan's war with the Quarismian Shah in 1219 are as important as a bear attacking you.
But at their best, they speak to some of our primal social and psychological needs, from feeling effective to achieving our goals, to belonging to a group, to working for something bigger than yourself.
Nietzsche's idea that, art should dramatise the terror and struggles of existence, struck a chord with Rothko, whose work aimed to invoke such primal emotions.
And then, somewhere in the barrel, she found it-the shofar that produced the perfect deep baritone, the primal call she'd long dreamed of but never made.