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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. And the 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, you will understand that in front of you is not a black square, but a multi-colored 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 reached its apogee, already fed up with all the artists, and new artistic trends began to appear. 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 talented artists have experienced his influence. 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. The 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 the time of 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 artistic 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 painted Black Square, told everyone for a long time 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 the great meaning of the "Black Square" is, 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, the "Black Square" is a rectangular trapezoid, and for some it is a deep philosophical message that the great artist encrypted. 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?
Exactly 100 years ago, on December 19, 1915, the painting by Kazimir Malevich "Black Suprematist Square" was first presented to the public at the Last Futuristic Exhibition "0.10" in St. Petersburg.
For the anniversary of the most recognizable painting of the Russian avant-garde, the Tretyakov Gallery exhibited rarely exhibited graphic works by Malevich and artists of his circle.
Record "citation index"
Experts are studying new versions of the creation of the "Black Square"On one of the white fields of the painting, a partially lost inscription was revealed, made with a pencil on a dried layer of paint, in connection with which several versions of the creation of the "Black Square" by Malevich appeared.A simple quadrangle at the beginning of the last century attracted increased attention, was called almost the manifesto of the new time. Art historians are still trying to explain the secrets of the popularity of the painting and its secret meanings, finding more and more confirmation of the uniqueness of the work.
This is the embodiment of "absolute zero", and the end of traditional objective thinking, and the transfinite beginning, and the zero expression of color, and the declaration of non-objectivity, and the mystical magnetism of Suprematism, and the challenge to society, and the project of the style of the world - thank you for reading this phrase to the end. But in short, Malevich made a revolution in art.
If we collect everything that is written about Malevich's "Black Square" (and this is impossible, but just assume), then the obvious uniqueness of the work will be just in the "citation index".
1. Malevich's square is not unique - it is at least secondary
20 years before that, a black painting by Alphonse Allais "Battle of the Negroes in a cave in the dead of night" appeared. The eccentric French artist and humorist did not put secret meanings into his canvas, explaining everything in the title.
And before that, there was Robert Fludd's black quadrilateral. As far back as the beginning of the 17th century, the philosopher-alchemist illustrated to them the "Great Secret of the Great Darkness" - that which was before the creation of the world.
In 1843, Bertal (real name DeArnou Charles Albert), a French portrait painter and illustrator, painted "View of La Hogue at night" - a horizontal rectangle, almost completely covered with blurry black characters. Later there were "The Twilight History of Russia" by Gustave Dore (in his view, the history of the birth of Rus' is lost in the darkness of centuries), the comic picture "The Night Fight of the Negroes in the Basement" by Paul Bilhod and the already mentioned "Battle of the Negroes in the cave in the dead of night".
2. "Black Suprematist Square" is not actually black
Even, as they say, with the naked eye, it is clear that the canvas is not of a uniform black color (this was discussed in detail above).
3. Malevich's square is not actually a square.
It's not even a rectangle, but rather a trapezoid. It does not have a single strictly right angle. This is really a black rectangle - as the author called it in the original version.
4. "Black Square" is the primacy of form, not content
Whatever hidden meanings we are looking for in the picture, in fact, there is almost nothing in it, except for a dark color and some abstract lines under it. The content is zero, the main thing is the form that prevails over everything. Moreover, at the same exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1915, other works by Malevich were shown (in the form of a black circle and a cross). However, the artist himself considered them secondary when years later he wrote works on the philosophy of the black square.
5. The work of Malevich is a revolution in painting
Again, a controversial thesis, but for a long time everyone has become so accustomed to it that this statement is taken for granted. At first, Malevich himself insisted on the idea of his rebellion in art - in the famous manifesto "From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism." 100 years ago, Malevich actually founded a new direction in painting - Suprematism (translated from Latin - "the highest"). This trend was to become the pinnacle of all the creative searches of artists (again, according to Malevich). Decades later, art historians devoted numerous treatises to the study of this direction.
"Black Square" is a simple but ingenious PR project
We remember that black rectangles had already been created before Kazimir Malevich, and in some cases it was presented not even as a joke, but as a completely conceptual work.
But only Malevich managed to remain for centuries the creator of the famous "Black Square". Whether fortune, or the ability to get to the right place at the right time, to calculate the demands of revolutionary art - all this led to the fact that Kazimir Malevich, in modern terms, found and launched a new trend. And later he repeatedly spoke and wrote about the philosophy of his painting.
“Everyone says: square, square, but the square has already grown legs, it is already running around the world” (from a conversation between Malevich and his students). "I consider my square a door that opened up a lot of new things for me" (from a letter from K. Malevich to M. Matyushin)
As a result, his creation is valued at tens of millions of dollars and is considered the most recognizable work not only of the Russian avant-garde, but of all Russian art in general.
A hundred years ago, these two words acquired a meaning that haunts a great many people.
The painting "Black Square" for any foreign art lover is the most famous Russian work of art, a symbol of an idea that was far ahead of its time even in the fast-paced 20th century.
Artist of the era of cataclysms
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich lived a life that least of all resembled the fate of a clever charlatan from art, who set a goal to get rich by selling abstruse theories, the symbol of which is seen by many “experts” as Malevich’s painting “The Black Square”. He was born in 1879 in Kyiv, in a large family of a production manager at a sugar factory. The desire for drawing was from childhood, but low income did not allow him to receive a systematic art education, forced him to start working life as a draftsman early.
In Kursk, where the Malevich family moved, he organized a circle of art lovers and began to prepare for admission to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he unsuccessfully tried to enter in 1905 - he lacked a formal education. Although Kazimir was already a family man, he moved to Moscow, studied at the private school of the graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts F.I. , Blue Rider, etc.
Search time
New time canceled old values. The meaning of the pictorial function of pictorial art was lost, photography and the emerging cinema began to document the time, forcing artists to experiment with form. Social and economic revolutions made familiar topics irrelevant, actively influencing the search for new content for paintings.
Malevich lived in the midst of artistic life, was influenced by the most advanced trends: he painted impressionistic landscapes, participated in shocking actions of the futurists (for example, he walked along the Kuznetsk bridge with wooden spoons in his buttonholes), painted in the style of cubism, developed his own style - “abstruse realism”, designed the publications of the most avant-garde poets, such as A. Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. Together with Mayakovsky, he published Today's Lubok, which reflected the events of the outbreak of the First World War.
"Victory over the Sun"
Back in 1913, events took place that largely determined the creative fate of Malevich. In St. Petersburg, the “First All-Russian Congress of Futurists” was held, in which three people took part: the inventor of a new language - “zaumi” - Alexei Kruchenykh, a supporter of musical dissonance Mikhail Matyushin and an active opponent of figurative painting Kazimir Malevich. The result of the inspired work was two performances of the opera Victory over the Sun, which went down in the history of avant-garde art. It is from here that Malevich's painting "The Black Square" comes from - a similar motif appeared in the form of a backdrop in the scenery for the 1st act of the opera.
The main theme of the opera was the birth of a new, machine-made future, which can only arise with the complete destruction of the old world. This theme was embodied by non-professional actors in fantastic costumes based on Malevich's sketches, uttering an incomprehensible but expressive "absurdity", moving among amazing scenery to the sharp atonal sounds extracted from the performances. The performances ended in scandal, i.e., the goal was achieved.
Exhibition "0.10"
Contemporaries noted Malevich's ability to unite artists around him, to generate unifying ideas. But even for his like-minded people, the exposition of 39 paintings prepared for the exhibition, which opened on December 19, 1915 at the N. Dobychina Gallery in Petrograd, was a complete surprise. The name "Zero, ten" meant zero subject forms in the paintings and ten participants in the exhibition (although there were 14 of them). It was on it that the painting "Black Square" first appeared - the photo captured it in the "red corner", where the icons were usually located.
The artist himself hung the paintings the night before the opening, wrote posters and captions, prepared a manifesto “From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism. Thus, he became at the head of a new artistic movement, the symbol of which was the painting "Black Square". The exhibition was designated as "The Last Futuristic", but with the definition of it as a transition to Suprematism, as suggested by Malevich, his associates did not agree - the artist proclaimed too radical ideas.
Suprematism
The name comes from the Latin supremus - the highest - and the Polish supremacja - superiority, supremacy. In the theoretical developments of the new style, Malevich spoke of the dominance of non-objectivity as the defining quality of true fine art. Freed from figurativeness, painting becomes an act of pure creation, similar to the divine, and the painting "Black Square" in this sense has the quality of the first cell, the first element of the new world.
Malevich deduces another meaning of the term from the main tools that he uses - colors, lines, simple geometric shapes - which are essential for the new reality being created. The very first Suprematist motifs, including Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square painting, had a special expressiveness based on compositions that were concise in color, not distorted by linear and aerial perspective, imitation of volume, etc. Later, the development of the basic principles took the form of influence on various genres - compositions of human figures became Suprematist, even three-dimensional elements appeared - "architectons", which became an expression of Malevich's views on
The basis of the new world created by the artist had one main expression - "Black Square". The meaning of the picture was determined by the value of the atom, from which not a reflection of the existing world is built, but a new, different reality, and the versatility of this world gave ambiguity to the Black Square. What is she in?
Apotheosis of non-objectivity
Proclaiming the independence of truly pure art from the function of documenting the surrounding reality, the artist inevitably comes to the loss of any figurativeness, or to the search for an initial form that cannot be broken down into its constituent elements. This is the primary element that Malevich found - "Black Square". The meaning of the picture is that the impression it produces does not depend on the semantic content, on associations with the objective world, on specific references and allusions. The task set by the master is not easy, it requires the participation of the viewer, the tension of his mental strength, the presence of some baggage. And most often it does not give explicit answers, but only indicates a new way of receiving impressions from being, but isn't this the goal of art?
Color is the basis of new painting
The full name of his most famous painting, the master denoted as follows: "Black Suprematist square on a white background." For the artist and philosopher, every word was important here, because the primacy of color, its primacy lies at the heart of Suprematism. You can find a description of Malevich's Black Square painting, where the color of the paint applied to the canvas appears to be a complex mixture of different shades, among which there is no unambiguously black, and the white frame is called the shimmer of light cream shades.
It seems that this made sense for the master when he took further steps - in the famous "white on white" series, when the expressiveness of painting is built on the finest color relationships between planes. The painting "Black Square" is a declaration of the dominant color, the most significant, significant, contrasting. Although understanding as a result of mixing all the primary colors (warm and cold, spectral and complementary), reinforces the meaning of this declaration.
Energy and Light
It is not for nothing that the first mention of the black square is found by Malevich in his work on the design of the futuristic opera Victory over the Sun. The description of the painting "Black Square", an explanation of the white background on which the opaque dense figure is placed, as the light that beats from behind the impending curtain, is found both in the artist himself and in the audience, and is especially organic in the context of the events taking place in the opera.
It is amazing how Malevich managed to foresee the picturesque trends that became relevant after half a century. Ed Reinhardt, Saul Levitt, of course, followed the path indicated by the Black Square. With Mark Rothko, the energy of color and vibration of a laconic form acquires cosmic proportions, and the means of expressing this energy are almost literally similar to Suprematist ones.
It is not known how important the man-made form was for Malevich, the slight non-parallelism of the sides of the square, the pulsation of the background and the flickering of black, but something makes you peer into this picture and every minute the mystical radiation from it becomes more tangible.
Crisis of ideas, end of art?
It is trite to assign prophetic qualities to an artistic genius, but in the case of Malevich, the gift of foresight is obvious. The apocalyptic motives endowed by Malevich in Black Square were also obvious to contemporaries. They saw the meaning of the picture in a dead end, where art and especially painting, the development of social thought, led.
The usual function of fine arts was declared obsolete, and the square was seen as a natural result of the creative searches of the Formalists. No wonder there is a legend that, having seen the "Black Square", Picasso lost interest in cubism - there was nowhere to move further ... The wartime that had already begun and a clear premonition of future revolutionary upheavals did not add optimism.
And yet, from the top of the past tense, in the slogans proclaimed by Malevich, one hears a call to look for new ways, and the denial of the old methods of displaying a changing world does not seem to be a dominant. This was confirmed by the further work of the master and his students, the vitality of his ideas.
reference point
Malevich's canvas still excites dense commentators who are excited by the name of the artist and the amount paid for the original painting - "critics" with an infantile virginal intellect. They are sure of the zero significance of such art. absorbing the bright matter of true artistic values, is also seen by highly educated guardians of spiritual traditions and moral norms.
Meanwhile, the name of Malevich is known to every future artist, designer or architect around the world, Suprematism has influenced the most famous contemporary masters. For example, the author of ultra-modern forms in buildings and human environment - Zaha Hadid - emphasizes the influence of the ideas of the Russian artist on all her work.
What you need to paint the picture "Black Square"
You can live your whole life without thinking about a well-fed comfortable life, look at the world differently than others. argue with friends and enemies, educate students, try to convince the state authorities of their rightness and end up in poverty and exile, die from a painful illness at a not yet old age and turn their own funeral into an action of avant-garde art.
But why complicate it? Canvas, a little bit of paint and a minimum of painting skills - a masterpiece of world significance is ready. And even better - a computer graphics editor and a high-quality printer - so smoother, more correct, more beautiful ... And most importantly - do not make extra mental effort, because everything is so simple ...
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was born in 1878 in the family of a sugar maker and a housewife in Kyiv. He had Polish roots, they spoke Polish in the family, but Malevich considered himself a Ukrainian. The artist spent his childhood in the Ukrainian outback, and, as he himself wrote, folk culture influenced all his work. He watched how the village women painted stoves, dishes, embroidered geometric patterns on shirts.
In the future, the artist many times in his works described childhood memories, which later influenced the choice of profession. Father took little Casimir with him to Kyiv. Looking through shop windows, he saw a canvas on which a girl was peeling potatoes. Malevich was shocked at how realistic the peel was. Or, seeing a painter painting a roof green, was amazed at how it gradually becomes the same color as the trees.
At the age of 15, his mother gave him paints, and at 16 he painted his first picture: a landscape with a boat, a river and the moon. A friend of the artist took the canvas to a store, where it was bought for 5 rubles - the average salary of a worker for 2 days. The subsequent fate of the painting is unknown.
Then many interesting events took place in Malevich's life: work as a draftsman, failure of entrance exams to the art academy, exhibitions, teaching at the university, the disgrace of the Soviet authorities - but now we will talk about his main works.
"Cow and violin", 1913
Probably, it was from this picture that Malevich declared war on traditional art. It was written in 1913 in Moscow, when the artist was sorely short of money. So he dismantled the closet and painted 3 paintings on the shelves. They even have holes for mounting on the side. Hence the unusual size of the canvas.
Malevich came up with "alogism" - a new style of painting that opposes itself to logic. Its essence was in combining the incongruous. The artist challenged academic art, all philistine logic. Art has always been created according to certain rules: there is a clear structure in music, poetry was sharpened to traditional rhythms such as iambic and chorea, in painting, pictures were painted as the masters bequeathed.
In the painting “The Cow and the Violin”, Kazimir Malevich put together things from two opposite banks. The violin as an object of classical art, besides one of the favorite subjects of Picasso's image, and a cow, which the artist copied from the signboard of a butcher's shop. On the back, he wrote "An illogical juxtaposition of two forms -" a cow and a violin "- as a moment of struggle with logic, naturalness, petty-bourgeois meaning and prejudices." In the same place, he put the date "1911" so that no one would have any doubts about who first came up with alogism.
Subsequently, the artist developed this direction, for example, in his work “Composition with Mona Lisa”. Here he depicted the famous work of Leonardo da Vinci, crossed it out and pasted an advertisement for the sale of an apartment on top. His performance on the Kuznetsky Most, the meeting place of the current golden youth, is famous: he walked along it with a wooden spoon in his jacket buttonhole, which became an obligatory attribute in the clothes of many avant-garde artists of that time.
Casimir Malevich became the founder of alogism, but did not develop it for long. Already in 1915 he came to his famous black square and Suprematism.
"Black Suprematist Square", 1915 In this picture, everything is mysterious - from origin to interpretation. Malevich's black square is actually not a square at all: none of the sides are parallel to each other or to the frame of the picture, it's just a rectangle that resembles a square to the naked eye. For his work, the artist used a special solution of paints, in which there was not a single black one, so the name of the painting does not quite correspond to reality.
It was written in 1915 for an exhibition, but Malevich himself put the date “1913” on the back. Perhaps this is due to the fact that in 1913 the opera Victory over the Sun was staged, in which the artist painted the scenery. It was an unacceptable production, consisting of slurred speech, avant-garde costumes and strange scenery. There, for the first time, a black square appeared as a background covering the sun.
So what is the meaning of this picture, what did the artist want to tell us? The complexity of an unambiguous interpretation was initially laid down by the author in the work. Initially, many artists sought to depict the object of drawing as accurately and similarly as possible. Ancient man tried to show hunting in his rock art. Later, symbolism appeared, when, in addition to depicting reality, painters put some meaning into their work. By placing various objects in their paintings, the artists sought to show their feelings or thoughts. For example, the image of a white lily meant purity, and a black dog in Christian culture meant unbelief and paganism.
During the years of Malevich's life, cubism was very popular, where the artist does not try to realistically depict the shape of an object, but shows its content with the help of geometric shapes and lines. Casimir went even further: he destroyed the form itself, depicting the zero of all forms - the square.
He created a new direction - Suprematism. This, he believed, was the highest manifestation of painting. The black square became the first letter of the alphabet with which his masterpieces were created. The artist called Suprematism a new religion, and the square - his icon. It was not for nothing that the painting hung at the top in the corner at the exhibition, where Orthodox icons hung, the so-called red corner.
In addition to the black square, the Black Circle and Black Cross were presented at the exhibition. And if the "Black Square" was the first letter of the alphabet of the new art, then the circle and the cross were the second and third. All three paintings made up a triptych, one whole, bricks with which the paintings of Suprematism will be built.
At least 4 versions of the black square are known, which Malevich painted later for various exhibitions. The first and third versions are in the Tretyakov Gallery, the second - in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. About the fourth black square became known only in 1993, when the creditor brought the painting as collateral to the bank. He never took the picture, and after the bank collapsed, Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin bought it for a symbolic million dollars and handed it over to the Hermitage.
In 2015, employees of the Tretyakov Gallery found complex geometric lines and patterns under the first black square. Experts say that there are paintings under the square, and not one, but two. In addition, they also found an inscription: "The battle of the Negroes in a dark cave." This is a reference to the 19th century artists Paul Bilhaud and Alphonse Allais, who were already drawing black rectangles and giving them similar names. So the paintings of Malevich still keep many secrets.
"Suprematist composition", 1916. The main thing here is the blue rectangle located on top of the red beam. The inclination of the Suprematist figures creates the effect of movement. This is the most expensive work of Russian art
The most amazing thing about this picture is its story. Malevich exhibited it at an exhibition in Berlin in 1927, but he urgently had to leave. He left his works for storage to the architect Hugo Goering, but fate turned out so that Malevich never saw the paintings again. When the Nazis came to power, all his works were to be destroyed as "degenerate art", but the artist's friend took more than 100 of his paintings out of the country. Later, the architect's heirs sold them to the Dutch Museum, which for many years organized the largest exhibitions of Malevich's paintings in Europe. Much later, the artist's relatives sued the museum for their inheritance, and 17 years later some of the paintings were returned to their rightful owners.
In 2008, this painting was sold for 65 million dollars and became at that time the most expensive canvas among the paintings of Russian artists. In 2018, "Suprematist composition" updated its record and was sold at auction for 85 million to an anonymous buyer.
"White on white", 1918 Developing the theme of non-objectivity, Malevich created a white square, or "White on White". If Suprematism stands above any other art, then the white square stands at the head of Suprematism itself. What could be more pointless than a white "nothing", and even on a white background? That's right, nothing.
There is a legend that the artist, having painted a picture, lost sight of the square and decided to outline its boundaries and shade the background more. In this form, the work reached the viewer.
The white color of the Suprematists was a symbol of space. Malevich considered whiteness to be the pinnacle of contemplation. In his opinion, a person, as it were, plunges into a trance, dissolves in color. The artist himself was delighted with his work. He wrote that he had broken the color barrier. After finishing work on the painting, Malevich was in a state of depression, because he could no longer create anything better.
For the first time the work was shown at the exhibition "Non-Objective Creativity and Suprematism" in 1919 in Moscow. In 1927, she was at an exhibition in Berlin and never again appeared in her homeland. It is now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The canvas is one of the few paintings available to the Western audience. In Soviet Russia, the white square was strongly associated with the white movement. Perhaps that is why the picture is not as famous in our country as in the West. In the US, the white square is comparable in popularity only to the black square in Russia.
"Red cavalry galloping", 1928-1932 The Soviet government did not much like Suprematism, and indeed all the work of the Russian avant-garde as a whole. The only painting by Malevich recognized by the Soviets is the Red Cavalry. I don't think I need to say much why. Even on the back was the inscription "The red cavalry is galloping from the October capital to defend the Soviet border." The artist put the date in the corner - "1918", although the picture was painted clearly later.
There are clearly expressed 3 elements - heaven, horsemen and earth. But not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance, few critics interpret the painting as a tribute to the Red Army.
The horizon line runs exactly along the golden section - the standard of proportions: the earth is related to the sky in the same way as the sky is to the whole. Such a division of the picture in those days was very rare, perhaps, the work of Malevich as a draftsman in his youth had an effect. By the way, the golden ratio is also present in the five-pointed star, whether it was a reference to the Soviet regime, one can only guess.
The numbers three, four and twelve often appear in the picture. There are three groups of riders on the canvas, four people each, which gives a total of 12. Each rider, as it were, is divided into 4 more people. The earth is divided into 12 parts. Versions of the interpretation are different, but, most likely, Malevich encoded a reference to Christianity here: 12 apostles, 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Holy Trinity ... Although it can be anything: 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 months, 3 heroes. Perhaps the artist came up with these numbers by accident, but, getting to know Malevich's work closer and closer, you do not believe in such coincidences.
Specialists of the Tretyakov Gallery discovered that Kazimir Malevich's 1915 painting "Black Square" was painted on canvas, which previously contained two images. In addition, art historians managed to read the author's inscription on the painting.
“It was known that there was some underlying image under the Black Square. We found out that there are not one such images, but two.
And they proved that the original image is a cubo-futuristic composition, and the one lying under the Black Square, the color of which you see in craquelure, is a proto-Suprematist composition, ”a researcher at the State Tretyakov Gallery’s scientific expertise department told Kultura TV channel.
She also said that together with her colleagues Irina Rustamova and she managed to decipher the inscription on the "Black Square", which is considered to be the author's.
The inscription reads: "Battle of the Negroes in a dark cave."
This phrase refers to the title of the painting by the French journalist, writer and artist Alphonse Allais “Battle of the Negroes in a Dark Cave in the Dead of Night”, written in 1882 and representing a completely black rectangle.
“Malevich has a complex, confusing handwriting and some letters are spelled the same: “n”, “p” and even “i” in some texts are very close in spelling. We are working on the second word. But the fact that the first word is “Battle”, you can all see in the exposition, ”explained Voronina.
The Black Square is the most mythologized work of fine art of the 20th century. His interpretations are innumerable. One thing is certain: the picture is perceived as an aesthetic manifesto of a whole generation of artists and as a symbol of the most important aesthetic era.
Malevich himself answered questions about the meaning and meaning of the “Square”, as they say, evasively. He said that he himself did not expect such an effect and did not quite clearly understand what all this could mean.
These words prompted some researchers to think about the supernatural, mystical origin of the pictorial symbol.
However, it is believed that for the first time the image of a black square appeared with Malevich in 1913 in sketches of scenery for the production of a futuristic opera and Victory over the Sun. In 1915, the square was presented in the form of a finished painting, along with other geometric works, which, in general, marked the emergence of a new artistic movement - Suprematism.
The works were first made public at the futuristic exhibition "0, 10", which opened in St. Petersburg on December 19, 1915.
Suprematist paintings by Malevich occupied a separate room there, and the Black Square hung in the so-called red corner - the place in the room where icons were kept in Russian huts.
The latter circumstance was perceived by many critics and journalists as a challenge and undermining the moral foundations. Subsequently, many skeptics tried to explain the "Black Square" pragmatically - the fact that the artist wrote something on canvas did not work, and he painted over the image as it occurred to him at that moment.
This bold hypothesis, however, is contradicted by the fact that Malevich repeatedly made the author’s repetitions of the “Square”. Today we know about four repetitions: two are stored in the Tretyakov Gallery, one in the Russian Museum, and one more in.
Thus, apparently, the current find of art critics from the State Tretyakov Gallery is important for the history of Malevich's masterpiece, but adds absolutely nothing to our understanding or misunderstanding of the picture. Is it straight
The name Alle, of course, in connection with sounded before. His four works from 1882-1883, which are blue, black, white and red rectangles with titles like "First Communion of Anemic Girls in the Snow", were shown at Unbound Art exhibitions. In connection with Malevich, everyone often recalled this, but it was not entirely clear how the playful French idea related to the monumental Russian symbol of new art. Now, apparently, one can perceive the search for Russian avant-garde artists, in particular, as a response to French tricks.
