Kazimir Malevich's Suprematism Works
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich spent his childhood in villages of Ukraine1 and knew nothing about professional art, although he was exposed to peasant art as a child. Later he moved to Moscow and got his education in art in Moscow. His work was influenced by avant-garde painters of the time and he responded that art did not need the artists and can advance on its own.Thesis -The aim of the essay is to provide a broad overview of Malevich’s artistic practices and the Suprematism of his work. The paper discusses the reasoning and meaning behind his work and why he chose certain colors or geometric shapes in in his Suprematism style of work. For Malevich, those shapes and colors are a pure phenomenon and refer to the supremacy of pure artistic feeling. The essay takes examples from his Suprematism style that presented geometric forms in a limited range of colors and simplest geometric shapes against a white background.Academic training and career The work of the Russian painter Kazimir Malevich, the very archetype of the avant-garde artist embraced every extreme of belief during the tumultuous era of revolution. He considered art as a pure spirit and art were connected to every sphere of life and thought. Malevich’s conception of art was so complete that its transcendence and earthly goals were fully realizable only through abstraction. He believed that abstract art carried the burden and status of politics, education, religion, philosophy, and culture itself. This is how he founded the movement of Suprematism and how art was a universal supremacy in human endeavor. In the early part of his career Malevich experimented with through impressionism2, post-impressionism, symbolism, and fauvism.
____________________1 Paula Wisotzki and Susan Freifeld. Kazimir Malevich Teaching Packet (National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1990), 69.
In the early part of his career Malevich experimented with through impressionism2, post-impressionism, symbolism, and fauvism. He developed the ideas of Suprematism and prepared a set of paintings for Suprematism exhibition. He wanted to start the new art from zero3. According to him, the superiority of Suprematism lay in overcoming the idea of imitation and getting free from the boundaries set by the objects of reality. His compositions were based on monochromatic geometric shapes that created a sovereign ideal world. For him, Suprematism carried universal aesthetics and could embrace poetry, sculpture, theater, and music. Suprematism strived to transform the world, and Malevich positioned his art ambitiously dwelling on his ideas that hovered between modernism and religion. What makes Malevich’s situation special is the opportunity given by the Revolution of 1917 4 to the entire Russian avant-garde and realize their dreams. The art movement of the time owed much to the irrationalism and anti-materialist doctrines that emerged because of the Revolution, wishing to overturn every tradition. As a Suprematist, the artists depicted his object independently of anything outside it and free form any boundaries of nature or realism. He started off in a completely new direction and it seems that those geometric forms were pure inventions of his mind5. His Suprematist canvas followed the laws of composition filled with strong forms and colors that self-sufficient creations of pure thought. It was like starting from scratch and working with the pure geometric forms, while breaking all connections with imitative art. His work shows that he had an aesthetic
____________________2 Paula Wisotzki and Susan Freifeld. Kazimir Malevich Teaching Packet (National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1990), 69.3 Elnara Taidre. 2014. Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism And Modernist Artistic Mythology As An Alternative To Religion. Baltic Journal of Art History 7 (1): 11-134.4Elnara Taidre. 2014. Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism And Modernist Artistic Mythology As An Alternative To Religion. Baltic Journal of Art History 7 (1): 11-134.5 Esther Levinger. 1989. Art and mathematics in the thought of el lissitzky: His relationship to suprematism and constructivism. Leonardo 22 (2): 227-36.
sensibility and knew how to minimize politics, the mysticism, and ideology. The Russian avant-garde artist moved the cube through two-dimensional space at an angle to create the patterns of Suprematism and an extraordinary body of paintings. Suprematism was not a unique phenomenon, and a number of art conceptions were surfacing at the start of the 20th century in Russia. However, what made it distinct was its extreme absolutism. Malevich embodied the extraordinariness of the Russian avant-garde. Still, he had to move toward a new logic, and it was his method of “Alogism” 6 that juggled fragmented images, words, and objects with confusing titles that defied common logic.Historical analysis of Kazimir Malevich's Works There are many remarkable works of the artist that unveil the meaning of Suprematism and reflect upon his intent liberate style of painting that broke away from the shackles of representation to ascend towards greater spatial freedom. His new approach to the making of artIndicate a complex underpinning to his use bold abstract language. He is fascinated by ideas related to the fourth dimension, which was a higher geometrical plane in spatial elevation. The notion of the fourth dimension was against the three-dimensional universe and stated that straight or curved lines did not exist in nature. Still, Malevich felt limited by Fourth Dimension in his later work, and his work carried more of supernatural approach. The abstract style of art, Supremacism originated with Malevich. His work from 1913 to 1916 carry some very personal statement in his new style7. His pectoral vocabulary required more exploration as it emerged from both personal and cultural matrices.
____________________6 Elnara Taidre. 2014. Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism And Modernist Artistic Mythology As An Alternative To Religion. Baltic Journal of Art History 7 (1): 11-134.7Charlotte Douglas. 1975. Suprematism: The sensible dimension. Russian Review 34 (3): 266-81.
“Black Square” (fig. 1) by Malevich remains one of the great ambiguities of 20th-century art. Malevich came up with the idea of Suprematism in 1915 suddenly and declared square to be the face of the new art and the first step towards pure creation. Black Square is fundamentally non-representational and rejects nature for abstraction and conveys inadequacy of imagination. The experience of looking at the painting creates a sense of relief and feelings of elation because of the formless or massive image. The images holds nothing and yet holds everything. Perhaps it is not easy to understand the spiritual quality of Black Square as the abstract style of art is shown in its very elementary form. It is an overwhelming experience to view the black image on white background. Malevich regarded his Black Square as the “embryo of all possibilities”8 and the very basic unit of visible reality. In his own words, he saw something new in the blackness of a surface plane and didn’t invent anything. The “Eight Red Rectangles” (Fig 2) show eight rectangles of different sizes aligned in a direction. The composition is a good example of the most dynamic phase, where the artist uses primary colors. The ambiguous artwork shows the rectangles floating in space and as if they are suspended on the wall. The rectangles towards the top right are bigger in size and the sizes taper off towards the lower end of the canvas. The alignment of the rectangles shows a kind of movement in an infinite space. This can be defined to be this more dynamic phase of the Suprematist movement and as aerial Suprematism. The composition may stand for pictures of the earth taken from the skies and departs from the totally abstract ambition of the artist. The slight tilt and uneven spacing of the eight rectangles in different tones of red pervade the composition with energy.
_______________________________8 Irina Lyubchenko, The Proto-Pixel Art of Malevich and Kandinsky: Black Square, Its Digital Descendant and Neo- Vitalist Impulse (Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference, 2014), 13.
Malevich’s “Dynamic Suprematism” (Fig 3) belong to the intense period of his artistic experimentation that coincides with 1917 Revolution in Russia. The artwork suggests harmonies that are not related to the physical world and are beyond human experience. Perhaps the artist was evoking the energy of the modern technological world and abandons representative images. However, Dynamic Suprematism is, as shown above, is a more balanced and very effective composition in a lighter and cooler palette. It looks like a geometrical zig saw puzzle, where different geometrical shapes in different colors and sizes are arranged together on a huge triangle in the background. For the artist, colors meant light9 and one can see how he has used those colors to create a pure optical phenomena. He has used shades like blue, green yellow and black over the dull background.
Another interesting work by the artists is”Painterly Realism of a Football Player” ( Fig 4).The composition is considered a masterpiece from the artists, who push art to non-objective abstraction via Suprematism. It is considered as one of the revolutionary works to show the inherent relationships of geometric shapes of different sizes and colors that seem to float against the white backgrounds. The circle at the bottom and the rectangle at the top are shown in two different orientation. The painterly picture is unrelated to nature and justifies truths beyond immediate sensory perceptions. The works shows Malevich’s interest in geometry, mathematics and Futurism10 along with his inclination towards supernatural interest. Thaw work is his attempt to look beyond the traditional three-dimensional world and enter the Fourth Dimension. It seems like the minute sized circle at the bottom has grown to become giant rectangle at the floating at
_______________________________9Malevich's Suprematist Palette – “Colour Is Light (Incorm journals, 2011), 11.10 Thomas Aiello, Head-First Through the Hole in the Zero: Malevich’s Suprematism, Khlebnikov’s Futurism, and theDevelopment of a Deconstructive Aesthetic, 1908-1919 (Emajartjournal.files, 2005), 16.
the top. The arrangement of the different geometric shapes show the steps upward and seem to be balanced by the horizontal straight line that adds dynamics to the composition. The next composition chosen for discussion is “Airplane Flying” by Malevich (Fig 5). Here, Malevich escapes from the circle of things and destroys the ring of the horizon while claiming supremacy over the forms of nature with his new style. He makes use of striking colors in this composition, red, yellow and black. He has titled the work as Airplane Flying so as to relate to the idea of freedom. He was perhaps fascinated with the idea of flying in the future. On the other hand, he perhaps wanted to kindle the soul with the venison of flight with his Suprematist aerial photographs and explore the pictorial potential of pure abstraction. The rectangles and cubes look solid and bold. Their arrangement and alignment add visual accents to the canvas and infuse a colorful energy. "White on White" (Fig 6) is a classic example of Malevich's bold abstraction and minimalism. The compositions show his newfound freedom where materialism allowed for spiritual freedom. The White on White Suprematist Composition may seem stark and void, but it is not devoid of emotion. The top square seems to be floating on the canvas and reminds one of aerial photography. The purpose of Malevich was pure art with no relation to nature. The “white on white” has the inner square placed at an angle and carries a dynamic angle to it11. There is minimum color contrast while the shapes placed at an angle carry dynamics. This shows the static style in his color concept while dynamics in his concept of form. The artists creates soft outlines with those brushstrokes. There is minimum of contrast that makes the white austerity of the painting seem more humane.
________________11 Alexandra Sokolova. Suprematist Composition: White On White (1918) By Kazimir Malevich. (A & C Black Publishers Ltd. 2014), 8.
A discussion
In the above examples taken from Malevich's Suprematism compositions, it is clear that he followed a reductionist approach to reduce the abstract painting to minimalist. Yet, there is an electrifying balance between color and shape, in those abstract compositions. His aim to progress from the 'zero degrees' of painting, using very basic colors and shapes, expanded the visual vocabulary. Those different sized geometrical shapes and figures in solid and overlapping colors, were often stretched, rotated and overlapped to include dynamism and force in the canvas. The white background in his canvas represents the boundless space and on which he places his geometric shapes. Malevich indeed brought a significant change in the way people looked at art and gave it a complete departure from any pictorial method with his new and unique style of suprematism. Malevich’s work reduced the pictorial means to a bare minimum, and he often stripped his painting of an essential attribute, the color. At the same time, he did not shy away from the use of color in his Suprematism work and for him, adding color was like adding light 12. He chose a color palette that was based on scientific findings, and his basic list of colors included black, white, red, green, blue and yellow. These colors varied in intensity between light and darkness and corresponded to the spectral colors.Conclusion Kazimir Malevich was undoubtedly one of the most prominent artists of his era who gave a whole new direction and meaning to geometric abstraction, making it start from the zero ground. He followed his unique philosophy of perception and unshed in suprematism. His works discussed in this paper reflect his experiments in painting and what he wanted to express through
________________12 Malevich's Suprematist Palette – “Colour Is Light (Incorm journals, 2011), 11.
Suprematism. Those basic geometric forms often painted in monochrome rejected the conventional boundaries of art and exploited new realms of spiritual freedom. Whether it was the large black square against a white background or White on White, he wanted to create the supremacy of pure art that didn’t need any artist for its visual representation.Illustrations
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aiello, Thomas, Head-First Through the Hole in the Zero: Malevich’s Suprematism, Khlebnikov’s Futurism, and theDevelopment of a Deconstructive Aesthetic, 1908-1919 (Emajartjournal.files, 2005), 16.Douglas, Charlotte. 1975. Suprematism: The sensible dimension. Russian Review 34 (3): 266- 81.Levinger, Esther. 1989. Art and mathematics in the thought of el lissitzky: His relationship to suprematism and constructivism. Leonardo 22 (2): 227-36.
Lyubchenko, Irina, The Proto-Pixel Art of Malevich and Kandinsky: Black Square, Its Digital Descendant and Neo- Vitalist Impulse (Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference, 2014), 13.
Malevich, Kasimir, The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism (Courier Corporation, 2003), 102.
Malevich's Suprematist Palette – “Colour Is Light (Incorm journals, 2011), 11.
Sokolova, Alexandra. Suprematist Composition: White On White (1918) By Kazimir Malevich. (A & C Black Publishers Ltd. 2014), 8.
Taidre, Elnara. 2014. Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism And Modernist Artistic Mythology As An Alternative To Religion. Baltic Journal of Art History 7 (1): 11-134.
Wisotzki, Paula and Freifeld, Susan. Kazimir Malevich Teaching Packet (National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1990), 69.
