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Is the famous painting by Kazimir Malevich a quackery or an encrypted philosophical message?

The famous painting divided into two periods not only the life of the artist, but also the history of art.

On the one hand, you don't have to be a great artist to draw a black square on a white background. Yes, anyone can do it! But here's the mystery: The Black Square is the most famous painting in the world. Already 100 years have passed since its writing, and disputes and heated discussions do not stop.

Why is this happening? What is the true meaning and value of Malevich's "Black Square"? website tried to figure it out.

1. "Black square" is a dark rectangle

Let's start with the fact that the "Black Square" is not at all black and not at all square: none of the sides of the quadrangle is parallel to any of its other sides and none of the sides of the square frame that frames the picture. A dark color is the result of mixing various colors, among which there was no black. It is believed that this was not the negligence of the author, but a principled position, the desire to create a dynamic, mobile form.

Kazimir Malevich "Black Suprematist Square", 1915.

2. "Black Square" is a failed picture

For the futuristic exhibition "0.10", which opened in St. Petersburg on December 19, 1915, Malevich had to paint several paintings. Time was running out, and the artist either did not have time to complete the painting for the exhibition, or was not satisfied with the result and rashly smeared it over by drawing a black square. At that moment, one of his friends came into the studio and, seeing the picture, shouted: “Brilliant!” After that, Malevich decided to take the opportunity and came up with some higher meaning for his “Black Square”.

Hence the effect of cracked paint on the surface. No mysticism, just the picture did not work out.

Repeated attempts were made to examine the canvas in order to find the original version under the top layer. However, scientists, critics and art critics believe that irreparable damage can be done to the masterpiece, and in every possible way prevent further examinations.

3. "Black Square" is a multi-colored cube

Kazimir Malevich repeatedly stated that the picture was created by him under the influence of the unconscious, a kind of "cosmic consciousness". Some argue that only the square in the "Black Square" is seen by people with an underdeveloped imagination. If, when considering this picture, you go beyond the traditional perception, beyond the visible, then you will understand that in front of you is not a black square, but colorful cube.

The secret meaning embedded in the "Black Square" can then be formulated as follows: the world around us, only at the first, superficial, look looks flat and black and white. If a person perceives the world in volume and in all its colors, his life will change dramatically. Millions of people who, according to them, were instinctively attracted to this picture, subconsciously felt the volume and multicoloredness of the Black Square.

Black color absorbs all other colors, so it is quite difficult to see a multi-colored cube in a black square. And to see white behind black, truth behind lies, life behind death is many times more difficult. But to those who succeed in doing this, a great philosophical formula will be revealed.

4. "Black Square" is a rebellion in art

At the time the painting appeared in Russia, there was a dominance of artists of the Cubist school. Cubism has reached its climax, already fed up with all the artists, and new ones began to appear. artistic directions. One of these trends was Malevich's Suprematism and the "Black Suprematist Square" as its vivid embodiment. The term "Suprematism" comes from the Latin suprem, which means "dominance, the superiority of color over all other properties of painting." Suprematist paintings are non-objective painting, an act of "pure creativity".

At the same time, the "Black Circle" and "Black Cross" were created and exhibited at the same exhibition, representing the three main elements of the Suprematist system. Later, two more Suprematist squares were created - red and white.

"Black Square", "Black Circle" and "Black Cross".

Suprematism has become one of the central phenomena of the Russian avant-garde. Many have been influenced by him talented artists. Rumor has it that Picasso lost interest in cubism after he saw Malevich's Square.

5. "Black Square" is an example of brilliant PR

Kazimir Malevich has figured out the essence of the future of contemporary art: no matter what, the main thing is how to present and sell.

Artists have been experimenting with black "all over" since the 17th century. First tightly black work of art called "The Great Darkness" was painted by Robert Fludd in 1617, followed in 1843 by Bertal and his work "View of La Hougue (Under cover of night)". After more than 200 years. And then almost without interruption - Gustave Dore's "Twilight History of Russia" in 1854, Paul Bielhold's "Night Fight of the Negroes in the Basement" in 1882, absolutely plagiarism - "The Battle of the Negroes in the Cave in the Dead Night" by Alphonse Allais. And only in 1915, Kazimir Malevich presented his "Black Suprematist Square" to the public. And it is his picture that is known to everyone, while others are known only to art historians. Extravagant trick glorified Malevich for centuries.

Subsequently, Malevich painted at least 4 versions of his "Black Square", differing in pattern, texture and color, in the hope of repeating and increasing the success of the picture.

6. "Black Square" is a political move

Kazimir Malevich was a subtle strategist and skillfully adjusted to the changing situation in the country. Numerous "black squares" painted by other artists during tsarist Russia, have remained unnoticed. In 1915, Malevich's "Square" acquired a completely new meaning, relevant to its time: the artist offered revolutionary art for the benefit of a new people and a new era.
"Square" has almost nothing to do with art in its usual sense. The very fact of his writing is a declaration of the end of traditional art. A Bolshevik from culture, Malevich went to meet the new authorities, and the authorities believed him. Before the arrival of Stalin, Malevich held honorary positions and successfully rose to the rank of People's Commissar of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat for Education.

7. "Black Square" is a rejection of content

The painting marked a clear transition to the realization of the role of formalism in the visual arts. Formalism is the rejection of literal content in favor of art form. The artist, painting a picture, thinks not so much in terms of "context" and "content" as "balance", "perspective", "dynamic tension". What Malevich recognized and his contemporaries did not recognize is factual for contemporary artists and "just a square" for everyone else.

Art has become obsolete, and many critics agree that after the "Black Square" nothing outstanding has been created. Most of the artists of the 20th century lost their inspiration, many were in prison, exile or exile.

"Black Square" is a total emptiness, a black hole, death. They say that Malevich, having written "Black Square", for a long time told everyone that he could neither eat nor sleep. And he does not understand what he did. Subsequently, he wrote 5 volumes of philosophical reflections on the theme of art and being.

10. "Black Square" is a quackery

Charlatans successfully fool the public into believing something that is not really there. Those who do not believe them, they declare stupid, backward and do not understand anything stupid, who are inaccessible to high and beautiful. This is called the "naked king effect". Everyone is ashamed to say that this is garbage, because they will laugh.

And the most primitive drawing - a square - can be attributed to any deep meaning, the scope for human imagination is unlimited. Not understanding what great meaning"Black Square", many people are faced with the need to invent it for themselves, so that there is something to admire when looking at the picture.

The painting, painted by Malevich in 1915, remains perhaps the most discussed painting in Russian painting. For some, "Black Square" is rectangular trapezoid, but for someone it is a deep philosophical message that was encrypted great artist. In the same way, looking at a piece of sky in the square of the window, everyone thinks about his own. What did you think about?

Malevich's works are one of the most striking manifestations abstract art the latest time. The founder of Suprematism, Russian and soviet artist entered the history of world art with the painting "Black Square", but his work was by no means limited to this work. With the most famous works The artist should be familiar to any cultured person.

Theorist and practitioner of contemporary art

Malevich's works clearly reflect the state of affairs in society at the beginning of the 20th century. The artist himself was born in Kyiv in 1879.

According to his own stories in his autobiography, the artist's public exhibitions began in Kursk in 1898, although no documentary evidence of this was found.

In 1905 he tried to enter the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. However, he was not accepted. At that time, Malevich had a family in Kursk - his wife Kazimir Zgleits and children. There was a split in their personal lives, therefore, without even enrolling, Malevich did not want to return to Kursk. The artist settled in Lefortovo in an artistic commune. IN huge house artist Kurdyumov lived about 300 masters of painting. Malevich lived in the commune for six months, but despite the extremely low rent, six months later the money ran out, he still had to return to Kursk.

Malevich finally moved to Moscow only in 1907. Attended the classes of the artist Fyodor Rerberg. In 1910 he began to take part in exhibitions creative association early avant-garde The paintings that were brought to him began to appear world fame and recognition.

"Suprematist composition"

In 1916, Malevich's work was already quite well known in the capital. At that time appears She is painted in oil on canvas. In 2008, it was sold at Sotheby's for $60 million.

It was put up for auction by the artist's heirs. In 1927, she exhibited at an exhibition in Berlin.

At the opening of the gallery, Malevich himself represented it, but he soon had to return, as the Soviet authorities did not extend his foreign visa. He had to leave all work. There were about 70 of them. The German architect Hugo Hering was appointed responsible. Malevich expected to return for paintings in the very near future, but he was never released abroad again.

Before his death, Hering transferred all the works of Malevich, which he had kept for many years, to the Amsterdam City Museum (also known as the Steleleik Museum). Hering entered into an agreement, according to which every year for 12 years the museum had to pay him a certain amount. Ultimately, immediately after the death of the architect, his relatives, who executed the inheritance, received the entire amount at once. Thus, the "Suprematist Composition" ended up in the funds of the Amsterdam City Museum.

Malevich's heirs have been trying to return these paintings since the 70s of the XX century. But they were not successful.

Only in 2002, 14 works from the Amsterdam Museum were presented at the exhibition "Kazimir Malevich. Suprematism". She went to the USA. Malevich's heirs, some of whom are American citizens, have filed a lawsuit against the Dutch museum. The management of the gallery agreed to a pre-trial agreement. According to its results, 5 out of 36 paintings by the artist were returned to his descendants. In return, the heirs waived further claims.

This painting is still the most expensive painting by a Russian artist ever sold at auction.

"Black square"

One of his most discussed works. It is part of the artist's cycle of works dedicated to Suprematism. In it, he explored the basic possibilities of composition and light. In addition to the square, this triptych contains the paintings "Black Cross" and "Black Circle".

The picture was painted by Malevich in 1915. The work was made for the final exhibition of the futurists. The works of Malevich at the exhibition "0.10" in 1915 were hung out, as they say, in the "red corner". In the place where the icon traditionally hung in Russian huts, the Black Square was located. The most mysterious and creepy picture in the history of national painting.

Three key Suprematist forms - a square, a cross and a circle, were considered in the theory of art as standards that stimulate further complication of the entire Suprematist system. It is from them that new Suprematist forms are already born in the future.

Many researchers of the artist's work have repeatedly tried to find the original version of the painting, which would be located under the top layer of paint. So, in 2015, an x-ray was performed. As a result, it was possible to isolate two more color images, which were located on the same canvas. Initially, a cubo-futuristic composition was drawn, and above it also a proto-Suprematist one. Only then everything was filled with a black square.

Scientists also managed to decipher the inscription that the artist left on the canvas. These are the words "Negro's battle dark cave", which refer art connoisseurs to the famous monochrome work of Alphonse Allais, which he created in 1882.

It is no coincidence that the name of the exhibition, which showed the work of Malevich. Photos from the vernissage can still be found in old archives and magazines of that time. The presence of the number 10 indicated the number of participants expected by the organizers. But zero said that the "Black Square" would be exhibited, which, according to the author's intention, is going to reduce everything to zero.

three squares

In addition to the "Black Square" in the work of Malevich there were several more of these geometric figures. Yes, and the "Black Square" at first was a simple triangle. He did not have strict right angles. Therefore, from the point of view of exclusively geometry, it was a quadrangle, and not a square. Art historians note that the whole point is not the negligence of the author, but principled position. Malevich sought to create perfect shape, which would be quite dynamic and mobile.

There are also two more works by Malevich - squares. These are "Red Square" and "White Square". The painting "Red Square" was shown at the exhibition of avant-garde artists "0.10". White Square appeared in 1918. At that time, Malevich's works, photos of which are now in any art textbook, were going through the stage of the "white" period of Suprematism.

"Mystical Suprematism"

From 1920 to 1922 Malevich worked on the painting "Mystical Suprematism". It is also known as the "Black Cross on a Red Oval". The canvas is painted in oil on canvas. It was also sold at Sotheby's for nearly $37,000.

By by and large, this canvas repeats the fate of the "Suprematist construction", which has already been told. She also ended up in the collections of the Amsterdam Museum, and only after the appeal of Malevich's heirs to the court, they managed to regain at least part of the paintings.

"Suprematism. 18 design"

The works of Malevich, whose photos with the names can be found in any textbook on the history of art, fascinate and attract close attention.

Another interesting canvas is the painting "Suprematism. 18 construction", painted in 1915. It was sold at Sotheby's in 2015 for nearly $34 million. She also ended up in the hands of the artist's heirs after judicial trial with the Amsterdam City Museum.

Another painting that the Dutch parted ways with was "Suprematism: Painterly Realism of a Football Player. Masses of Color in the Fourth Dimension". She found her owner in 2011. It was purchased by the Art Institute of Chicago for a sum that it did not wish to disclose to the public. But the work of 1913 - "Desk and Room" could be seen at a major exhibition of Malevich in the Tate Gallery in Madrid. Moreover, the picture was exhibited anonymously. What the organizers had in mind is unclear. Indeed, in cases where the true owner of the canvas wishes to remain incognito, they announce that the painting is in a private collection. Here, a fundamentally different wording is used.

"Suprematist composition"

The works of Malevich, the description of which you will find in this article, will give you a fairly complete and clear idea of ​​​​his work. For example, the painting "Suprematist composition" was created in 1919-1920. In 2000, it was sold at a Phillips auction for $17 million.

This picture, unlike the previous ones, remained in Germany after Malevich's departure from Berlin to the Soviet Union. Alfred Barr, director of the New York Museum of Modern Art, brought it to the United States in 1935. For 20 years, she exhibited in the United States as part of the exhibition "Cubism and the fact that the painting had to be urgently removed - in Germany by that time the Nazis came to power, Malevich's work fell out of favor. His Nazi superiors attributed it to samples. At first, the director of the Hanover Museum hid the canvas in his basement, and then secretly handed over to Barr, who took the priceless work to the United States.

In 1999, the New York Museum returned this painting and several of his graphic works to Malevich's heirs.

Self-portrait of the artist

In 1910, Malevich painted his self-portrait. This is one of three of his self-portraits painted during this period. It is well known that the other two are kept in domestic museums. These works by Malevich can be seen in the Tretyakov Gallery.

The third self-portrait was sold at auction. Initially, he was in private collection George Costakis. In 2004, at a Christie's auction in London, a self-portrait found its owner for just £162,000. In total, because over the next 35 years its value has increased by about 35 times. Already in 2015, the painting was sold at Sotheby's for almost $9 million. Indeed, a good investment.

"Peasant's Head"

If we analyze the works of Malevich over the years, then we can establish a certain trend, with the help of which we can trace how his work developed.

A good example for this is the painting "Head of a Peasant", painted in 1911. In 2014, at the Sotheby's auction in London, she went under the hammer for $ 3.5 million.

For the first time, the public saw this painting by Malevich in 1912 at the Donkey's Tail exhibition, which was organized by Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov. After that, she participated in the Berlin exhibition of 1927. Then Malevich himself presented it to Hugo Hering. Already from him she passed by inheritance to his wife and daughter. Hering's heirs sold the painting only in 1975, after his death.

In the Russian Museum

The works of Malevich in the Russian Museum are presented very widely. Here, perhaps, is the richest collection of his works. The work of this reformer and teacher is treated with reverence, his canvases are given the most honorable places.

In total, the funds of the Russian Museum today contain about 100 paintings, plus at least 40 graphics. Many of them with new dates. More accurate. The uniqueness of the collection presented in the Russian Museum lies in the fact that there are not just a lot of works, they also cover the widest possible range of his work. Both early works, practically the first experiments in painting, and later works are presented. realistic portraits, which do not at all recognize the brush of the artist who painted the "Black Square".

Death of an artist

Kazimir Malevich died in Leningrad in 1935. According to his will, the body was placed in a Suprematist coffin, which is a cross with outstretched arms, and cremated.

In addition to the black square, to convey the superiority of pure sensation, Malevich created non-objective works, consisting of simple geometric shapes, where leading role color plays. In many paintings, it is the square that occupies a special place, attracting crosses, triangles, circles and, like a magnet, keeping them in balance and in motion at the same time, creates the illusion of a living organism.

Having written several dozen canvases on the topic H black square, Malevich called the new direction of non-objective art the term Suprematism from the Polish supremacy, superiority, domination. Indeed, according to system-vector psychology, sound vector and is dominant over all the others. In its full development, a person with a sound vector is able to penetrate into the very essence of a mental person and he is the only one who is in connection with the divine plan of what is happening on earth.

Malevich is not worth it, he is experimenting further. In 1918, he writes white on white. White forms seem to melt in the boundless whiteness, creating purity and infinity of the universe.He's writing:« It takes me to a bottomless abyss. incorporeal geometric elements floating in unknown space».

Malevich designed prototypes of future space stations, being influenced by the theory of interplanetary flights. In order to achieve a complete feeling of weightlessness and to be part of the universe, he rejected the concept of up and down in his works.

There are known facts that Malevich's paintings were often hung upside down, but they did not lose their expressiveness. People who do not have abstract thinking, do not have in their vector set sound vector, still cannot accept or understand Malevich's paintings. This explains the impossibility for them to feel the works created by man from the depths of his« sound» attitude. There are only 5 percent of people with a sound vector in nature.

The sound root of the Black Square

The abstract intelligence of a sound engineer, in its potential, is the most powerful, the only one capable of comprehending abstract non-material concepts. The owners of the sound vector carry ideas that move the rest of humanity forward. They are the first and only ones who are the only ones capable of determining the direction of movement of social transformations and the global general development of mankind.

The works of Malevich, alien to the ideals of socialist realism, were rejected by Soviet propaganda. Job« Red cavalry», about which Soviet art critics claimed that she praised the revolution and the Red Army, turned out to be the only recognized painting by the disgraced artist. But there is data that says that by order from above, the artist simply added the cavalry to the already finished Suprematist composition. Yes, and the inscription of Malevich, on the back of the picture, proves his ironic attitude to what is happening:« The red cavalry gallops from the October capital to defend the Soviet border».

The dispute over the Suprematist paintings by Kazimir Malevich has not yet ended.He wrote:« I did not invent anything, I only felt the night in myself, and in it I noticed something new that I called Suprematism». And how else can a sound engineer, with a species role« night guard in the flock » And« feedback to the root cause» express yourself?

It took the artist about 10 years to come to the idea of ​​Suprematism, in the transformation of the art world according to his new philosophical concept. Screen« black» closed the artist physical world subject forms of art history. The whole spectrum of colors has absorbed white and black. The areas of the background and the figure are equal, with a single square shape, but with a different meaning. White, consisting of a fusion of the entire spectrum of colors, is a frame for black, in which there is no light. Filled with whiteness is torn apart by the gaping emptiness of black, turning white into a frame of infinite space.

Breakthrough of the Black Square by Malevich

The beginning of the 20th century marked an era of great upheaval turning point in people's worldview and their attitude to reality. The world was in a state where the old ideals of beauty classical art faded completely and there was no return to them, and the birth of a new one was predicted by great upheavals in painting. There was a movement from visual realism and impressionism, as a transfer of sensations about her, to sound abstract painting. those. first humanity depicts objects, then sensations, and finally ideas.

Malevich's black squareturned out to be a timely fruit of the artist's insight, who managed to create the foundations of the future language of art with this simplest geometric figure, which is fraught with many other forms. Rotating the square in a circle, Malevich received geometric figures cross and circle. When rotating along the axis of symmetry, I got a cylinder. A seemingly elementary flat square contains not only other geometric shapes, but can create three-dimensional bodies.

The black square, dressed in a white frame, is nothing but the fruit of the creator's insight and his reflections on the future of art. The geometric figure of the square is not drawn on a ruler, but painted with a brush. The composition itself fits literally into a mathematical formula. In search of three-dimensional meanings embedded in simple planar forms, if you divide the square into geometric figures and present them in space from a certain point of view, as they are reconnected, they return to a planar figure.

Malevich also believed that it was time for art to break away from everyday life, from external reality, not imitating this reality, but projecting it. Than not sound ideas!!!

In his other works, Malevich, by own words, expressed the sensations of life, such as soaring, flying, harmony, disharmony, freezing, etc. The same sensations can be perceived only by a few other owners of sound and visual vectors, who understand and in a special way developed in the perception of abstract phenomena.

Only people with abstract thinking are close and understandable to the ideas of Malevich and his Black Square about the principles of free shaping in space, where one form-figure overflows into another, reviving this endless chain of transitions. Malevich was well aware of the universality of the discovery of Suprematism, which dictated changes in all spheres of human creativity. He personally created architectural Suprematist projects, calling them architectons. Geometric bodies, built on the basis of the simplest geometric shapes, take on a new life. The architecture of postmodernism is entirely based on these ideas.

For example, the center in Los Angeles, built in the 1980s, fully corresponds to what Malevich said that Suprematist forms will coexist with other forms of life on an equal footing. It is created in a special color, rhythmic composition, from many simple geometric shapes. Depending on the point of view, the complex of buildings seems to be a complex single organism, perceived from different points like a building moving, growing and changing, like a living thing.

The discovery of the system of Suprematism, made at the beginning of the 20th century by Kazimir Malevich, thanks to the simplest, in the opinion of those not dedicated to the black square, also predetermined the image of the urban structure of the distant future.

The search for new, still unknown in art, ways of self-expression was carried out by the artist through multiple experiments for the sake of one suggestion to the viewer of certain feelings, sensations and ideas, the onset new era significant changes in the mind of man.

At the end of writing the black square, Malevich, as the artist himself describes, could neither sleep nor eat. So great was the inspiration of the significance of the changes he revealed for all mankind. And art, like all other spheres human life and activities subject to global change. Especially, in the transitional moments of history, it goes far ahead of the curve.

Even Karl Marx said that the price good work art also includes payment for many thousands of bad works that someone still needs to write so that with accumulated experience, someone writes one good one. To know and feel the whole meaning laid down by the artist in« Black square», anyone who wants to needs to know and feel not only the meaning of the work itself, but also the entire history of painting, which implies the history of all mankind.

Malevich writes a lot about this in his publications. Following the idea of ​​​​Karl Marx, Black Square absorbed the colossal experience of many thousands of other paintings.

Black square. A gift to humanity

The system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan gives a clear explanation and the possibility of understanding why people, for the most part, still cannot understand and accept the deep meaning laid down by Malevich in « Black square».

Everything in the universe works according to the same principles and natural laws, like black - absorbing and white - reflecting, like main principle the nature of receiving and giving. And in order to live according to the true balanced laws of nature, every confused person must turn to his nature. There he will reveal everything. There is a tool - the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan. I hope that the secret of the black square is not a secret at all, but there is a meaning or a plan that we managed to reveal and understand.

Kazimir Malevich died in December 1935. An unusual funeral procession proceeded along the Nevsky Prospekt of Leningrad, with a sarcophagus, created according to the design of the deceased, installed on an open platform of a truck. A black square was attached to the hood. So Malevich turned his own funeral into the last creative manifestation.

According to the will, after his death, the body of Malevich, the parent of the Black Square, was cremated in a Suprematist coffin, and then the urn was buried under his beloved oak artist near the village of Nemchinovka.

The article is based on materials system-vector psychology Yuri Burlan a

　
P.S. Suprematist painting by Kazimir Malevich below from the collection of Yu.B.

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My taste has not yet become so square that every time the name of Malevich arises in the minds of precisely his "Black Square". After the "Square" he lived for another two decades and worked until last hour- by the way, as a conscious Soviet artist. In pre-Stalinist times, he rose to the position of people's commissar, was in charge of the fine arts sector through the People's Commissariat of Education - he did not remain idle as a functionary. But most importantly, he continued to paint. Oil.

He wrote, for example, "Portrait of a girl with a red pole", although there is no red banner or flag on the canvas, except perhaps in a piece of the "pole" that the girl holds in her hands, and the beauty of the piercing color of the T-shirt is fanned in red.

This portrait remained from Malevich in the Tretyakov Gallery and is kept there as one of the masterpieces of his collection.

Why did the "Black Square" overpower everything in people's memory?

Let's remember the moment of creation. 1915 Lenin has not yet lifted the power, wallowing in the mud. Not a single group that is exhausted dares to overthrow. Decided - the artistic elite, which in place of half-dead decadence puts "suprem", which is translated from Latin as a dominant idea, an all-suppressing motive.

Suprematism was the choice of more than one Malevich: historians of painting count half a dozen similar concepts - not so much picturesque as general ideas. Something was written down for Malevich, something was attributed to him; his idea (in my understanding) is simple and logical: if strength is to take the place of general impotence, then this strength must be provided with a form in which it will acquire universal validity and human meaning.

Everything turned out in our history in a Suprematist - albeit terrible: in a tragic civil war the reds showed the whites for all future times, where is the strength of the victorious.

But how much hidden contemporaries of the "Black Square" imagined! How many riddles Malevich gave them! Well, why are the edges of his "Square" microscopically unpredictable?! Whether the artist did not have a ruler when he drew geometric body, or he deliberately complicated the work of copyists. Maybe he confirmed the versions of the interpreters, maybe he joined them as a joke ...

Now you can't tell.

Yes, and no need. There is no need to collect patterns on black: it will not add or subtract anything. Of the dozens of reviews on "Square", only the judgment seems significant to me Alexandra Benois; the largest art critic of that time walked around the exhibition hall and found Malevich's "Square" in the holy red corner.

Undoubtedly, this is the icon, - said Benois, - which the gentlemen of the futurists put in place of the Madonna.

This is a judgment - to the very point! Instead of Madonna! An artistic idea may take this or that form, but the content depends on the condition of the people. Always! Although the artist can rely on at least Latin ...

It is not the supremacy of his intellect that helps me understand Malevich. A self-portrait painted in oils. Wide open dark Polish eyes. And a question to contemporaries, for the sake of which Kazimir Severinovich is about to open his mouth:

So you've decided which formula will help? What if it's a triangle? Or some kind of seven-sided pseudo-twist? Or a bandolier with twenty pockets?

He chose "Square". Why black? There are many explanations. I have mine. The age of mass culture needs simple solutions. Of course black! The color of our indestructible aggressiveness.

The painting was part of a triptych

The painting was part of a triptych, which also included the Black Circle and the Black Cross. There were other works by the author at the exhibition (about three dozen), but, of course, all of them were lost against the backdrop of the Black Square: the scandalous canvas hung in the most prominent place - according to the principle of the "red" corner, where icons were placed in the huts. Naturally, many perceived the picture as a challenge to Orthodoxy and an anti-Christian gesture.

The creation of the "Black Square" was preceded by a period of experiments and searches

The creation of the "Black Square" was preceded by a period of experiments and searches. The Russian avant-garde was torn apart by numerous new artistic movements. Malevich worked simultaneously in cubism, futurism and "abstruse realism" until he reached Suprematism. The method of the latter was to look at the earth from the outside. Therefore, in Suprematist paintings, as in outer space, the idea of ​​"top" and "bottom", "left" and "right" disappears, and an independent world arises, correlated as equal with the universal world harmony.

The image of a black square as a symbol first appeared in Matyushin's opera

The image of a black square as a symbol first appeared in Matyushin's opera Victory over the Sun, for which Malevich created sketches of scenery and costumes. Then the image meant a plastic expression of the victory of active human creativity over the passive form of nature: a black square appeared instead of a solar circle.

A scene from the production of "Victory over the Sun" - a reconstruction performed by the Stas Namin Theater

Later, for the exhibition "0.10" at the "Art Bureau of N. E. Dobychina" Malevich used the image of a black square to create a picture. Artists were given the opportunity to exhibit many works. Malevich's friend Ivan Puni wrote to him: “We need to write a lot now. The room is very large, and if we, 10 people, paint 25 paintings, it will only be just that.” Malevich signed for 39 paintings, which occupied a separate room.

Of course, as often happens, in addition to the official version of the creation of the picture, there are stories. So, Malevich allegedly did not have time to complete the picture for the exhibition, and therefore he smeared it in the heat of the moment, drawing a black square. At that moment, one of his friends came into the studio and, seeing the picture, shouted: “Brilliant!” Whether this is true or not, we will never know.

By the way, recent research by specialists from the Tretyakov Gallery suggests that under the black square there are colored geometric figures intricately connected to each other. Having made an x-ray of the painting, the experts also saw Malevich's fingerprints on the canvas (which is natural) and three words, two of which were read by the museum staff as "Battle of the Negroes ...", the third is difficult to make out. The phrase refers to the famous monochrome painting by Alphonse Allais “The Battle of the Negroes in the Cave late at night”, created in 1882, a work that Malevich had never seen.

What was found under"Hblack square«

Malevich made several copies of the "Black Square"

Subsequently, Malevich made several copies of the Black Square. Now, in addition to the original of 1915, three more variants are known that differ in pattern, texture and color. The first copy was made in 1923 for the Venice Biennale (now kept in the Russian Museum), the second - in 1929 to personal exhibition Malevich in the Tretyakov Gallery.

The third option became a hero mysterious history. It was probably written in 1932, but it was not known then. Information about the canvas first appeared in 1993, when a person whose name remains unknown brought the painting to the Samara branch of Inkombank as collateral for a loan. Subsequently, the owner did not claim the canvas, and it became the property of the bank. After the ruin of Inkombank in 1998, Malevich's painting became the main asset in settlements with creditors. By agreement with the Russian government, the Black Square was withdrawn from open auction, purchased by Vladimir Potanin and transferred to the Hermitage.

By the way, there are two more basic Suprematist squares - red and white. The artist claimed: “The Suprematist three squares are the establishment certain worldviews and worldbuilding… black as a sign of economy, red as a signal of revolution, and white as pure action.”

"Red Square"

Malevich's funeral in 1935 was a performance

The funeral of Malevich in 1935 was a kind of performance. At a civil memorial service in Leningrad, a “Black Square” hung at the head of the coffin, the body was covered with a white canvas with a black square sewn on it. On the lid of the coffin, from the side of the head, a "Black Square" was drawn. During funeral procession along Nevsky Prospekt, the Suprematist sarcophagus was installed on an open platform of a truck with a black square on the hood. A black square was painted on a white background on the train car carrying Malevich's coffin to Moscow. At a civil memorial service at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, the "Black Square" was fortified on the podium among the flowers.

Malevich's daughter Una and widow Natalya Andreevna at the artist's grave in Nemchinovka

Malevich bequeathed to bury his ashes surrounded by nature, among open space. The Suprematist coffin was sent by train to Moscow, where Malevich was cremated. His ashes were buried in a field near the village of Nemchinovka. Instead of a monument, a white wooden cube with a black square was installed. To the Great Patriotic War the grave disappeared, and now a residential complex has been built on that place.