The name of Kazimir Malevich is inextricably linked with the masterpiece of world art - the Black Square. The artist is often called a Pole, forgetting where Kazimir Malevich was born. The master really came from a Polish family. Place of birth - Kyiv (February 23, 1879). Although his origin is Polish, Malevich is a Russian, Soviet artist. The heyday of the artist's creative activity coincided simultaneously with the decline of the Russian Empire.
Kazimir Severinovich seriously influenced the development of the abstract direction of world art. Modern avant-garde artists should be grateful to the legacy of Malevich. Malevich made abstractionism the key art direction of the twentieth century along with Kandinsky, Goncharova, Mondrian.
Biography
The artist's family was large (eight children). As a sixteen-year-old teenager, Casimir began his studies at an art school, painted his first painting "Landscape in Oil". According to legend, the young man's friends liked the picture. One of them took the canvas, secretly from the author sold the canvas for five rubles. A year later, the family moved to Kursk. Casimir continued his creative research. I had to combine artistic activity with an extremely boring job as a draftsman. Gray routine, routine strained Casimir. Creativity has become a real outlet.
1899 - the time of the meeting of the master with Kazimira Zgleits. The latter will become his wife. Together they lived for five years. The master, driven by a thirst for creative development, left to conquer Moscow. Soon the artist had to return: two attempts at admission failed. Family quarrels intensified. As a result of a deteriorated relationship, leaving the children, the woman went to her lover. The artist, taking the children, met his second wife, Sofia Rafalovich.
1910 was marked by the rise of Casimir's creative career. The artist changed several cities: Moscow, Vitebsk, Petrograd. Married for the third (last) time to Natalya Manchenko, became director of the Leningrad State Institute of Artistic Culture. Death overtook Malevich after a long illness on May 15, 1935. According to the will, he was buried near the village of Nemchinovka, Moscow Region.
Kazimir Malevich: creative works
Having started his creative path with traditionalism, cubic futurism, the artist Kazimir Malevich managed to develop his own direction of painting and find many followers. Avant-gardism, gaining momentum, especially attracted Malevich. 1910-1915 - the era of neo-primitivism. The plots of the works of Kazimir Malevich became episodes of the simple life of provincial peasants and workers. Neo-primitivism, various forms of cubism did not satisfy the creative impulses of the artist. The latter was looking for new forms, trying to cross the line of non-standard directions. 1915 became a landmark: Kazimir wrote the famous "Black Square", which begins the era of Suprematism.
The Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich is a special trend. The fundamental pillars are complete non-objectivity, pure color. The term is rooted in Latin, based on the concept of supremacy (superiority). It is this feeling that the famous canvases of the master evoke. In the paintings, the element that surpasses the rest is the color, which is the central axis of the work.
1915 was marked by the beginning of the victorious march of Suprematism. Malevich is working hard on his paintings. Publishes a book. "From Cubism to Suprematism" is among the most interesting monographs on the theory of avant-garde painting. Kazimir Severinovich founded the Supremus Society of Artists. A few years later (1919), the group was transformed, changing the name of UNOVIS (“affirmers of the new art”).
The Soviet government rather worsened the position of the legend-artist. The master was repeatedly subjected to harsh criticism from state censors. Theoretical work began to raise many questions, contradicted the ideas of Soviet society. By 1926, the confrontation between the artist and the authorities became extremely aggravated. The article "The monastery is supplied by the state" caused a sharp rejection. "Soviet machine" began to pursue the master. The picture actually became the reason for the closure of the institute, where Malevich served as director. Article circulation immediately seized. The last straw of the confrontation was the recognition of Casimir's talents by the Western community (Berlin Exhibition in 1927). The artist was arrested twice and imprisoned. First, they charged him with trying to espionage, then they “sewn” on anti-Soviet propaganda.
Kazimir Severinovich painted many beautiful paintings. Most of the canvases make up the golden fund of world art of the early 20th century. The style of artfully layering one color on another allowed for extraordinary depth in every detail. This kind of technique is one of the recognizable features of the master's works.
- After the first arrest of Malevich (1930), the Western art community gave wide publicity to this outrageous fact. After pressure from influential friends, fearing reactions from the media, the artist was released.
- The famous Black Square is part of a triptych. Here the artist included the works "Black Circle", "Black Cross".
- Malevich repainted the canvas four times, achieving virtually perfect condition. It is the fourth version, exhibited in the Hermitage, that is known to the world today.
Kazimir Malevich: paintings with names
To better understand what direction in art Kazimir Malevich founded, let's see the best works of the artist:
Kazimir Malevich triptych "Black Square - Black Circle - Black Cross
Kazimir Malevich "Red Square" 
Kazimir Malevich "White on White" 
Kazimir Malevich "Four Squares" 
Kazimir Malevich "White Cross" 
Kazimir Malevich "Red Cavalry Galloping" 
Kazimir Malevich "Athletes" 
Kazimir Malevich Head of a Peasant Girl 
Kazimir Malevich "Morning after a blizzard in the village" 
Kazimir Malevich "Samovar" 
Kazimir Malevich "To Harvest (Martha and Vanka)" 
Kazimir Malevich "Spring" Category Born in Kyiv on February 11 (23), 1878 in a family of immigrants from Poland (his father worked as a manager at sugar factories). In 1895-1896 he studied at the Kyiv drawing school N.I. Murashko; having arrived in Moscow in 1905, he studied in the studio of F.I. Rerberg. He went through almost all the styles of that time - from painting in the spirit of the Wanderers to impressionism and mystical symbolism, and then to the post-impressionist "primitive" (Corn operator in the bath, 1911-1912, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam). He was a participant in the exhibitions "Jack of Diamonds" and "Donkey's Tail", a member of the "Union of Youth". Lived in Moscow (until 1918) and Leningrad.
Exposing academic artistic stereotypes, he showed a bright temperament of a controversial critic. In his works of the first half of the 1910s, more and more fervently innovative, semi-abstract, the style of cubo-futurism was determined, combining the cubist plasticity of forms with futuristic dynamics (Grinder (Flashing Principle), 1912, Yale University Gallery, New Haven, USA; Lumberjack, 1912–1913, City Museum, Amsterdam).
During these years, the method of “abstruse realism”, the poetics of the absurd, the illogical grotesque, also gained importance from Malevich (The Englishman in Moscow, ibid; Aviator, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; both works - 1914). After the outbreak of the war, he performed a cycle of patriotic agitators (with texts by V.V. Mayakovsky) for the Sovremenny Lubok publishing house.
The key meaning for the master was the work on the design of the opera Victory over the Sun (music by M.V. Matyushin, text by A.E. Kruchenykh and V.V. Khlebnikov; the premiere took place in St. Petersburg Luna Park in 1913); from the tragicomic burlesque about the collapse of the old and the birth of the new worlds, the idea of the famous Black Square arose, first shown at the exhibition "0, 10" in 1915 (kept in the Tretyakov Gallery).
This simple geometric figure on a white background is both a kind of apocalyptic curtain over the past history of mankind and a call to build the future. The motive of the all-powerful builder, starting from scratch, dominates in “Suprematism” - a new method, designed, according to Malevich’s plan, to crown all previous avant-garde trends (hence the name itself - from Latin supremus, “highest”). The theory is illustrated by a large cycle of non-objective geometric compositions, which ends in 1918 with "white suprematism", where colors and forms floating in the cosmic void are reduced to a minimum, almost to absolute whiteness.
After the October Revolution, Malevich first acts as an "artist-commissar", actively participating in revolutionary transformations, including monumental agitation. Glorifies the "new planet" of avant-garde art in articles in the newspaper "Anarchy" (1918). He sums up the results of his search during his stay in Vitebsk (1919–1922), where he creates the “Association of Approvers of New Art” (Unovis), striving (including in his main philosophical work, World as Non-Objectiveness) to outline a universal artistic and pedagogical system, decisively transforming the relationship between man and nature.
Upon his return from Vitebsk, Malevich headed (since 1923) the State Institute of Artistic Culture (Ginkhuk), putting forward ideas that radically updated modern design and architecture (volumetric, three-dimensional Suprematism, embodied in household items (porcelain products) and building models, the so-called "architectons "). Malevich dreams of leaving for "pure design", becoming more and more alienated from the revolutionary utopia.
Notes of disturbing alienation are characteristic of many of his easel works of the late 1910s–1930s, where motifs of facelessness, loneliness, and emptiness dominate - no longer cosmically primordial, but quite earthly (a cycle of paintings with figures of peasants against the background of empty fields, as well as the canvas Red house, 1932, Russian Museum). In later paintings, the master returns to the classical principles of painting (Self-portrait, 1933, ibid.).
The authorities are increasingly suspicious of Malevich's activities (he was arrested twice, in 1927 and 1930). By the end of his life, he finds himself in an atmosphere of social isolation. The original "school of Malevich", formed from his Vitebsk and Leningrad students (V.M. Ermolaeva, A.A. Leporskaya, N.M. Suetin, L.M. Khidekel, I.G. Chashnik and others) goes either into applied design, or into underground "unofficial" art.
Fearing for the fate of his heritage, in 1927, during a business trip abroad, the master left a significant part of his paintings and archives in Berlin (later they formed the basis of the Malevich fund in the Amsterdam City Museum).
The large Polish family of Malevich constantly moved from place to place, having traveled half of Ukraine: Kyiv, Moevka, Parkhomovka, Belopolye, Konotop. Severin Malevich worked as a sugar production manager. The eldest of nine children, Kazimir, born on February 23, 1879, was destined for a similar career. But the technique did not at all attract the boy, who was in love with nature, its bright colors and peasant life. He was fascinated by the ability of people working on the ground to find time for creative work: to sing, dance, decorate their homes.
Father often took Casimir on business trips. During one of them, he saw in the window of a Kyiv store a picture in which a girl was peeling potatoes. Despite the uncomplicated plot and the standard manner of writing, this portrait was one of his first aesthetic shocks. Casimir was saved from boring and routine work at a factory or a railway by his mother. Ludwiga Alexandrovna not only took care of the house and children, but also did needlework, teaching her son a lot along the way, and wrote poetry. At the age of 15, she bought a set of paints of 54 colors, realizing that her son, who is susceptible to the beautiful, needs just such a gift. The various impressions accumulated during childhood and adolescence - moonlight in a dark room, the immensity of the horizon, a roof painted green, swell in a huge puddle - and admiration for color were splashed onto paper. The first painting was Moonlit Night, which delighted his friends and was sold in a Konotop stationery shop for 5 rubles. The first meeting with real artists took place at Malevich's in Belopolye. The work of icon painters from St. Petersburg impressed the future painter so much that he, together with a friend, even planned an escape to the Northern capital. Over the years, the study of iconography will help him better understand the naive creativity of the peasants.
Kazimir Severinovich can rightfully be called self-taught, including in painting. In his luggage there are only a few classes of an agricultural school, a year of study at the drawing school of Nikolai Murashko in Kyiv in 1895-96. An attempt to become a student of MUZHVZ (school of painting, sculpture and architecture) was stopped by his father, who did not send an application for admission to Moscow.
After moving to Kursk in 1896, in connection with the appointment of Malevich Sr. to work in the Railway Administration, considerable changes took place in the life of the family. Casimir got a job as a draftsman in the same department, not forgetting about painting. Together with several colleagues, he organized a circle that brought together amateur artists. In 1901, he married the daughter of the pharmacist Zgleits, his namesake, who bore him two children - Anatoly (1901) and Galina (1905). In 1902, a misfortune happened - Severin Antonovich died suddenly of a heart attack. Despite the economic crisis and the status of the main breadwinner of a large family, Malevich did not leave the thought of Moscow. It was there, in his opinion, that it was possible to realize the dream of serious studies in painting. In 1905 his dream came true. Leaving his family in Kursk with a promise to return for loved ones when he settles, Kazimir moves to Moscow. The small cash reserves accumulated during his service in Kursk allowed him to settle in the artistic commune of Kurdyumov. Several unsuccessful attempts to enter the MUZHVZ and a great desire to learn to draw led him in 1906 to the private school-studio of the artist Fyodor Rerberg, one of the founders of the Association of Artists. Malevich also took part in the exhibitions of this community from 1907. This period includes his acquaintance with Ivan Klyun and Mikhail Larionov. The works of that period reflected his fascination with impressionism. Studying with Rerberg allowed him to master various methods and techniques of painting, to gain systematic knowledge of its history. He regularly visited the Tretyakov Gallery, visited the expositions of contemporary artists and performances of Moscow theaters.
After the death of her husband, Ludwig Alexandrovna did not lose heart and took upon herself the provision of her family, while at the same time providing the maximum possible support to her son in his desire to become a real artist. Thanks to her efforts, his wife and children were able to move to Moscow from Kursk. But after a couple of years, the marriage collapsed, unable to withstand material difficulties and guest relations. Indeed, even after the family moved to Moscow, Kazimir did not immediately leave the commune, not intending to sacrifice his dream. Priority was unconditionally given to painting, in contrast to the same Klyun, who did not leave the service in order to provide for a family with three children. Malevich's work at the beginning of the 20th century is characterized by eclecticism or a mixture of different styles: a departure from the realistic manner in favor of impressionism, fauvism, and modernity. The end of the first decade was very fruitful for the artist, and fauvist motifs prevail in his work. Acquaintance with Larionov allowed him to take part in the first exhibition of the Jack of Diamonds association. From 1908 to 1912, his bright works in the folklore style, related to the so-called peasant cycle, appeared in the expositions of the Moscow Salon, the Youth Union, the Blue Rider Munich, and the Donkey's Tail. The "Donkey's Tail" included Larionov, Goncharova, Malevich, Tatlin, Chagall, Fonvizin, who broke away from the "Jack of Diamonds" group. Subsequently, having diverged in views with Larionov, Malevich, at the invitation of Matyushin, joined the Union of Youth. During this period, there is a gradual transition to the cubo-futuristic style. In 1913 he took part with compositions written in a similar manner in the Target exhibition. The idea for the famous "Black Square" arose in 1913 while working on the sets and costumes for the futuristic opera "Victory over the Sun" by Kruchenykh and Matyushin. The black-and-white backdrop, against which a chaotic action unfolded with an illogical text, symbolized the eclipse, the triumph of new life and human reason. Innovative discoveries of Malevich: the effect of depth, achieved by erecting scenery in cubic structures, the creation of three-dimensional space with the help of light. The use of geometric figures in the design of the stage and costumes, dividing them into component parts, anticipated the creation of its own direction in painting - Suprematism. Asymmetric compositions of multi-colored planes in a dynamic space. The results of work in a new direction were presented at the futuristic exhibition "0, 10" in 1915. The selection of 39 paintings included the "Black Square", placed in the upper corner of the room. Where icons are traditionally hung. In 2015, a sensational discovery was made. The picture resembles a nesting doll, in which several images are hidden: under the dark quadrangle there are two more compositions - cubo-futuristic and proto-suprematist. The inscription “Battle of the Negroes in a Dark Cave” was also found there, evoking associations with the black rectangle of Alphonse Allais.
After the revolution, Malevich was called by the new government to work in the field of protection of monuments and cultural values, including in the Kremlin. He served as chairman of the art department in the Moscow City Council, after which two new museums of contemporary art appeared in Moscow. He taught at the State Free Workshops, collaborated with Meyerhold on the production of "Mystery-Buff" in Petrograd, wrote the work "On New Systems in Art". In 1919 his first solo exhibition took place. In the same year, Malevich moved with his second wife to Vitebsk, where he mainly taught at the art school created by Chagall and wrote works on contemporary art. The UNOVIS society he created in 1920 included Lissitzky, Kogan, Chashnik and other talented artists and architects. In 1922, Malevich returned to Petrograd with his students and followers. In 1925, he presented his new developments regarding the use of Suprematism in the design of buildings - architectons and planites.
The artist's trips abroad began only in 1927. The first country was Poland, where the Suprematist paintings of the artist were treated very favorably. The exhibition in Berlin turned out to be a triumph. But instead of five months, he was able to stay there only one. The demand of the authorities for the immediate return of Malevich to the USSR forced him to leave Germany. He left most of the paintings for the preservation of the architect Hugo Hering. Many of them can be seen in the Amsterdam City Museum. At home, he was arrested as an alleged German spy. The conclusion did not last long - about a month. But we can confidently assume that the trigger for the terrible disease, from which he later died, was the stress experienced during the first arrest.
While Malevich's fame grew abroad (new exhibitions in Berlin and Vienna), clouds gathered around him in his native land. For about a year he regularly came to Kyiv to give lectures at the Art Institute. The exhibition organized there in the spring of 1930 caused a negative reaction in the authorities. A new arrest followed, and only the intervention of a high-ranking official Kirill Shutko, his friend, allowed him to soon be released. Created by 1932, a new folklore cycle, “post-Suprematist” canvases, with flat torsos, is evidence of an internal breakdown and growing anxiety. The picture with the eloquent title "Complex foreboding" with a dramatic color scheme, the lack of a face in a character deprived of the ability to see and speak, anticipates the events of the near future. In the works of the later period there is an unexpected return to a realistic manner. This is how the portraits of his daughter Una, born in a second marriage, Klyun, Punin, the artist's third wife, ordinary workers, are written.
In 1933, Kazimir Severinovich was diagnosed with cancer, from which he died on May 15, 1935. Malevich bequeathed to bury him in a cruciform Suprematist coffin with arms outstretched to the sides. After the cremation procedure, the ashes were transferred to Nemchinovka, a village near Moscow, in which the artist loved to relax so much. A black square was depicted on a cubic monument erected over the grave. A few decades later, the burial site, lost during the Second World War, was discovered by pathfinders.
Elena Tanakova
Kazimir Malevich painted in different styles: neo-primitivism, impressionism, alogism and cubism. However, none of them reflected his view of reality, so Malevich developed a new direction - Suprematism. Later, the ideas of Suprematism began to be used not only in painting, but also in other areas - design, architecture, cinema.
Experiments of a young artist: cubo-futurism and "paintings in a primitive spirit"
Kazimir Malevich with his wife Natalia Manchenko. Photo: lavender.media
Kazimir Malevich was born in 1878 (according to other sources - in 1879) in Kyiv. His father worked at sugar factories away from big cities, so Malevich spent his childhood in Ukrainian villages. The picturesque nature and color of rural life inspired the boy and influenced his work in the future. “Peasants, young and old, worked on the plantations, almost all summer and autumn, and I, the future artist, admired the fields and the “colored” workers,- recalled Malevich.
In 1889, his father took Kazimir Malevich to the annual fair of sugar makers in Kyiv. Here the boy saw paintings for the first time. After the trip, Malevich began to paint. However, the father did not support this hobby: he wanted his son to continue the family business, and sent him to the agronomic school in the village of Parkhomovka. Mother, on the contrary, encouraged the desire for art and even bought Casimir paints. Later, 17-year-old Malevich entered the Kyiv drawing school of artist Nikolai Murashko, where he studied for a year.
The thought of Moscow began to worry me greatly, but there was no money, and the whole mystery was in Moscow, nature was everywhere, and the means to paint it were in Moscow, where famous artists also lived ... I summed up the monetary base, and according to according to my calculations, I should have had enough for the whole academic year, and in the spring I will arrive in Kursk and go to work. I'm going. It was 1904.
Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Malevich. Shroud (detail). 1908. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Kazimir Malevich. Gardener (detail). 1911. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Kazimir Malevich. Landscape with a yellow house (detail). 1906. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
In the summer of 1905, Malevich applied to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but he was not accepted. From Kursk, he came to enter the school two more times, in 1906 and 1907 - all to no avail.
In 1907, Kazimir Malevich finally moved from Kursk to Moscow. He began attending Fyodor Rerberg's studio school, where he studied the history of painting and tried out new artistic techniques. In search of his own style, the artist imitated the drawing manners of famous masters. At this time, he created several canvases on religious themes: "Sketches of fresco painting" and "The Shroud" - and paintings in the style of impressionism "Portrait of an unknown from the artist's family" and "Landscape with a yellow house (Winter landscape)". After the first exhibition of the association "Jack of Diamonds" in 1910, Malevich painted his first avant-garde paintings: "Bather", "Gardener", "Corn operator in the bathhouse" and "Polishers".
Kazimir Malevich. Peasant woman with buckets and a child (detail). 1912. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Kazimir Malevich. Morning after a blizzard in the village (fragment). 1912. Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
Kazimir Malevich. Rye harvesting (detail). 1912. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
During the same period, Malevich created the first peasant series. The early canvases of this cycle - "Reaper", "Mower", "Peasant Woman with Buckets and Child", "Harvesting Rye" - the artist executed in the spirit of neo-primitivism. The figures of the peasants were deliberately enlarged, distorted and simplified. The works that completed the peasant series - "Woman with Buckets", "Morning after a Blizzard in the Village", "Head of a Peasant Girl" - were painted by Malevich in the cubo-futuristic style. The silhouettes of the villagers in these compositions formed numerous repetitions of geometric figures.
I remained on the side of peasant art and began to paint pictures in a primitive spirit. At first, in the first period, I imitated iconography. The second period was purely "labor": I painted the peasants at work, reaping, threshing. Third period: I approached the "suburban genre" (carpenters, gardeners, summer cottages, bathers). The fourth period is the "city sign" (floor polishers, maids, lackeys, office workers).
Kazimir Malevich
Malevich's Square: Suprematist Paintings
Kazimir Malevich. Supremus No. 56 (detail). 1916. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Kazimir Malevich. Black suprematist square. 1915. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Kazimir Malevich. White on white (detail). 1917. Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
A few years later, Malevich joined the St. Petersburg creative association of Russian avant-garde artists "Union of Youth". The financial situation of the artist at that time was deplorable: sometimes there was not enough money even for a canvas - then he used furniture. On three shelves of the whatnot, the artist painted the canvases “Toilet Box”, “Station Without Stopping”, “Cow and Violin”. The artist wrote the first two works in the spirit of cubo-futurism, and the third - in the style that he called "alogism". This picture became a protest against the traditional logic of art. The master combined in one canvas essences that, according to the laws of classical painting, were incompatible: a cow and a violin. He focused on color, lines and their interaction with each other.
In the same year, Kazimir Malevich designed the opera Victory over the Sun. The futuristic performance was staged by the Union of Youth. Malevich thought over the lighting, created the scenery and sketches for the costumes. He recalled that while working on the play, he even came up with new revolutionary paintings.
In 1915, Malevich presented 16 works at the First Futuristic Exhibition of Paintings "Tram B". Most of them were classic cubo-futuristic canvases - "The Lady at the Billpost", "The Lady in the Tram", "The Sewing Machine". But on one of them, “Compositions with the Mona Lisa” (the painting received its name later), features of the new style already appeared: a deep white background, colored geometric shapes and their special arrangement relative to each other.
After this exhibition, Kazimir Malevich began to prepare for the next one. He developed his new style of abstraction: non-objective color figures on a white background. Kazimir Malevich, together with Velimir Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh, called this artistic direction Suprematism, which means “superiority” in translation.
Malevich described the foundations of Suprematism in the pamphlet “From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism. In it he proclaimed the transition "toward a new pictorial realism, non-objective creativity" and emphasized the dominance of color over other aspects of painting. According to Malevich, the master should not copy nature, but create his own artistic worlds. Malevich took three figures as a basis - a square, a cross and a circle. It was on these initial forms that he built all subsequent Suprematist paintings.
Kazimir Malevich. Lady on a tram (detail). 1913. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Kazimir Malevich. The lady at the poster pole (fragment). 1914. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Kazimir Malevich. Compositions with Mona Lisa (detail). 1915-1916. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The artist presented canvases in a new style in 1916 at the Last Futuristic Exhibition of Paintings "0.10" - along with his brochure. The exposition included paintings "Lady", "Self-portrait in two dimensions", "Picturesque realism of a football player - Colorful masses in the fourth dimension". The central work was the "Black Quadrangle" (later - "Black Square").
The participants of the exhibition reacted very sharply to the revolutionary works of Malevich: they forbade the artist to declare this trend one of the currents of futurism.
The black square in a white frame is not a simple joke, not a simple challenge, not a random little episode that happened in a house on the Field of Mars, but this is one of the acts of self-affirmation of that beginning, which has its name the abomination of desolation and which boasts of the fact that it through pride, through arrogance, through the trampling of everything loving and tender, will lead everyone to death.
Alexander Benois
The author himself answered the adherents of traditional art as follows: "Accustomed to warming up near a pretty face, it is difficult to warm up near the face of a square". He spoke of his paintings as "healthy art form", which cannot be evaluated by the criteria "like" or "I do not like". In 1919, the first personal exhibition of the artist “Kazimir Malevich. His path from impressionism to suprematism. He singled out three stages in Suprematism: black, color and white. At the first stage, the artist explored the relationship of forms, at the next - colors, at the last - textures. The "Black" period represented the triptych "Black Square", "Black Cross" and "Black Circle". The "color" period began with the "Red Square", and ended with the paintings "Supremus No. 56", "Supremus No. 57" and "Supremus No. 58". The "white" period of Suprematism was marked by a series of paintings "white on white". He moved to Vitebsk and in 1919 wrote the first major theoretical work "On New Systems in Art", and three years later - the treatise "Suprematism. The world as non-objectivity.
Soon the artist had followers. Together with them, Malevich created a "new party in art" - UNOVIS (Approvers of the new art). The association included Lev Yudin, Lazar Lissitzky, Nikolai Suetin, Vera Ermolaeva, Nina Kogan. Together they decorated city holidays, designed furniture and utensils, drew posters and signs - created "utilitarian world of things" in the style of Suprematism. However, the association of avant-garde artists did not last long - until 1922. Soon Soviet art took an anti-avant-garde course, and working conditions deteriorated sharply. From Vitebsk, Malevich and some of his students moved to Petrograd.
In 1927, the artist went to Europe - an exhibition of his paintings was organized there. This was Malevich's first and last trip abroad: he soon received an order from the Soviet government to return to his homeland. When the artist returned to the USSR, he was accused of espionage and arrested. They were allowed to go home only three weeks later. Immediately after his release, he began to prepare for a solo exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery: for her, the artist had to re-paint his paintings, since most of them remained abroad.
Over time, the persecution of Kazimir Malevich only intensified: after a solo exhibition in Kyiv in 1930, he was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and arrested. This time the artist spent three months in prison. After his release, Malevich completed the second, peasant cycle paintings in the post-Suprematist style - the author himself called it "Suprematism within the framework of the human figure". On the canvases, the figures of the peasants were flat and located frontally, and instead of faces there was a white or black void. On the back of one of the papers, the author wrote: “The composition was formed from elements, a feeling of emptiness, loneliness, hopelessness of life”.
In 1932, a turning point came in the work of Kazimir Malevich - he began to paint mostly portraits. The paintings combined the traditions of Suprematism, Russian icons and the Renaissance. The canvases “Head of a modern girl”, “Worker”, “Portrait of the artist’s wife: Natalya Andreevna Malevich, nee Manchenko”, “Self-portrait” belong to this period. Instead of a signature, the master drew a black square on them.
Kazimir Malevich died in 1935. The body of the artist was cremated, and the ashes were buried in the village of Nemchinovka near Moscow.
Born into a family of immigrants from Poland, he was the eldest among nine children. In 1889-94. the family moved frequently from place to place; In the village of Parkhomovka near Belopolye, Malevich graduated from a five-year agronomic school. In 1895-96. for a short time he studied at the Kyiv drawing school of N. I. Murashko. Since 1896, after moving to Kursk, he served as a draftsman in the technical department of the railway. In the autumn of 1905 he arrived in Moscow, attended classes at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and the Stroganov School for educational purposes; lived and worked in the house-commune of the artist V.V. Kurdyumov in Lefortovo. He attended classes in the private studio of F. I. Rerberg (1905-10). Spending the summer in Kursk, Malevich worked en plein air, developing as a neo-impressionist.
Unemployed
Woman
Malevich participated in exhibitions initiated by M. F. Larionov: The Jack of Diamonds (1910-11), The Donkey's Tail (1912) and The Target (1913). In the spring of 1911, he became close to the St. Petersburg society "Union of Youth", of which he became a member in January 1913 (left in February 1914); in 1911-14 he exhibited his works at the association's exhibitions, participated in discussion evenings.
apple tree in bloom
Reaper on a red background
Decorative expressionistic canvases by Malevich at the turn of the 1900s-10s. testified to the development of the heritage of Gauguin and the Fauvists, transformed taking into account the pictorial tendencies of Russian "Cezannism". At the exhibitions, the artist also presented his own version of Russian neo-primitivism - paintings on the themes of peasant life (canvases of the so-called first peasant cycle) and a number of works with scenes from "provincial life" ("Bather", "On the Boulevard", "Gardener", all 1911, Stedelijk Museum, etc.).
Two women in the garden
woman in yellow hat
Since 1912, a creative partnership began with the poets A. E. Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. Malevich designed a number of publications of Russian futurists (A. Kruchenykh. Blown up. Drawings by K. Malevich and O. Rozanova. St. Petersburg, 1913; V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh , E. Guro. Troy. St. Petersburg, 1913; A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov. Game in Hell. 2nd additional ed. Drawings by K. Malevich and O. Rozanova. St. Petersburg, 1914; V. Khlebnikov. Gloves, drawing by K. Malevich, St. Petersburg, 1914; and others).
On the hayfield
Man
His painting of these years demonstrated a domestic version of futurism, called "cubo-futurism": a cubist change in form, designed to affirm the self-worth and independence of painting, was combined with the principle of dynamism cultivated by futurism [“Grinder (Flashing Principle)”, 1912, etc.]. Work over the scenery and costumes for the production at the end of 1913 of the futuristic opera Victory over the Sun (text by A. Kruchenykh, music by M. Matyushin, prologue by V. Khlebnikov) was subsequently interpreted by Malevich as the formation of Suprematism.
woman worker
Soldier of the first division
In painting at that time, the artist developed the themes and plots of "abstruse realism", which used alogism, the irrationality of images as a tool for the destruction of ossified traditional art; illogical painting, expressing an abstruse, transrational reality, was built on a shocking montage of heterogeneous plastic and figurative elements that formed a composition filled with some kind of meaning, confounding the ordinary mind with its incomprehensibility (“Lady at a Tram Stop”, 1913; “Aviator”, “Composition with Mona Lisa, both 1914; An Englishman in Moscow, 1914, etc.).
Composition with Mona Lisa (Partial Eclipse in Moscow)
Swimmers
After the outbreak of World War I, he performed a number of propaganda patriotic popular prints with texts by V. V. Mayakovsky for the Sovremenny Lubok publishing house. In the spring of 1915, the first canvases of an abstract geometric style appeared, which soon received the name “Suprematism”. Malevich gave the name "Suprematism" to the invented direction - regular geometric figures painted in pure local colors and immersed in a kind of "white abyss", where the laws of dynamics and statics dominated. The term he composed went back to the Latin root “suprem”, which formed the word “suprematia” in the artist’s native language, Polish, which in translation meant “superiority”, “dominance”, “dominance”. At the first stage of the existence of a new artistic system, Malevich sought to fix the primacy, the dominance of color over all other components of painting with this word.
Portrait of the artist's daughter
Runner
At the exhibition "O, 10" at the end of 1915, he first showed 39 canvases under the general title "Suprematism of Painting", including his most famous work - "Black Square (Black Square on a White Background)"; at the same exhibition, the brochure "From Cubism to Suprematism" was distributed. In the summer of 1916 Malevich was called up for military service; demobilized in 1917.
Two male figures
A carpenter
In May 1917 he was elected to the board of the professional Union of painters in Moscow as a representative of the left federation (young faction). In August, he became chairman of the Artistic Section of the Moscow Council of Soldiers' Deputies, where he conducted extensive cultural and educational work. In October 1917 he was elected chairman of the "Jack of Diamonds" society. In November 1917, the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee appointed Malevich Commissar for the Protection of Ancient Monuments and a member of the Commission for the Protection of Artistic Values, whose duty was to protect the values of the Kremlin.
Harvesting
peasant woman
In March-June 1918, he actively collaborated in the Moscow newspaper Anarchy, publishing about two dozen articles. Participated in the work on the decoration of Moscow for the holiday of May 1. In June he was elected a member of the Moscow Art College of the Art Department of the People's Commissariat of Education, where he joined the museum commission together with V. E. Tatlin and B. D. Korolev.
Pilot
cow and violin
As a result of a disagreement with members of the Moscow Collegium, he moved to Petrograd in the summer of 1918. In the Petrograd Free Workshops, Malevich was entrusted with one of the workshops. Designed the Petrograd production of "Mystery-Buff" by V. V. Mayakovsky directed by V. E. Meyerhold (1918). In 1918 canvases of "white Suprematism" were created, the last stage of Suprematist painting.
In the country
Portrait of Ivan Klyun
In December 1918 he returned to Moscow. He took over the leadership of painting workshops in Moscow I and II GSHM (in the I-x together with N. A. Udaltsova).
In July 1919, in Nemchinovka, he completed his first major theoretical work, "On New Systems in Art."
Station without stopping. Kuntsevo
Una's portrait
At the end of the same year, Malevich's first solo exhibition took place in Moscow; representing the concept of the artist, it unfolded from early impressionist works through neo-primitivism, cubo-futurism and illogical canvases to Suprematism, which was divided into three periods: black, color, white; the exposition ended with stretchers with blank canvases, a clear manifestation of the rejection of painting as such. The Vitebsk period (1919-22) was devoted to writing theoretical and philosophical texts; in those years, almost all of Malevich's philosophical works were written, including several versions of the fundamental work “Suprematism. The world as non-objectivity.
Three women
Gardener
As part of the activities of the association “Affirmatives of the New Art” (UNOVIS) created by him, Malevich tested many new ideas in the artistic, pedagogical, utilitarian and practical spheres of the existence of Suprematism.
bathers
Lumberjack
At the end of May 1922 he moved from Vitebsk to Petrograd. From the autumn of 1922 he taught drawing at the architectural department of the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineers. Created several samples and designed Suprematist paintings for porcelain items (1923). He made the first drawings of "planites", which became the design stage in the emergence of spatial and volumetric Suprematism.
Suprematism
Samovar
In the 1920s headed the State Institute of Artistic Culture (Ginkhuk). He also headed the formal-theoretical department in Ginkhuk, later renamed the department of pictorial culture. As part of the experimental work of the institute, he conducted analytical studies, developed his own theory of the surplus element in painting, and also began to manufacture volumetric Suprematist constructions, "architectons", which, according to the author, served as models of new architecture, the "Suprematist order", which was supposed to form the basis of a new, comprehensive universal style.
Head
Portrait of the artist's wife
After the defeat of Ginkhuk in 1926, Malevich, together with his staff, was transferred to the State Institute of Art History, where he headed the committee for the experimental study of artistic culture.
Peasant
red figure
In 1927 he went on a business trip abroad to Warsaw (March 8–29) and Berlin (March 29–June 5). An exhibition was opened in Warsaw, where he gave a lecture. In Berlin, Malevich was given a hall at the annual Great Berlin Art Exhibition (May 7 - September 30). April 7, 1927 visited the Bauhaus in Dessau, where he met W. Gropius and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy; in the same year, as part of the Bauhaus publications, Malevich's book "The World as Non-Objectivity" was published.
On the boulevard
Spring
Having received a sudden order to return to the USSR, he urgently left for his homeland; He left all the paintings and the archive in Berlin in the care of friends, as he planned to make a big exhibition tour in the future with a stop in Paris. Upon arrival in the USSR, he was arrested and spent three weeks in custody.
High society in top hats
Family member portrait
In 1928, the publication of a series of articles by Malevich began in the Kharkov journal New Generation. From this year, preparing a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery (1929), the artist returned to the themes and plots of his works of the early peasant cycle, dating the newly painted paintings to 1908-10; Post-Suprematist canvases constituted the second peasant cycle.
With stroller
Scenery
In the late 1920s a number of neo-impressionist works were also created, whose dating was shifted by the author to the 1900s. Another series of post-Suprematist paintings was made up of canvases, where generalized abstract forms of male and female heads, torsos and figures were used to construct an ideal plastic image.
Reaper
Athletes
In 1929 he taught at the Kiev Art Institute, coming there every month. The personal exhibition in Kyiv, which worked in February-May 1930, was severely criticized - in the fall of that year, the artist was arrested and imprisoned for several weeks in the Leningrad prison of the OGPU.
yellow chaos
Suprematism
In 1931 he created sketches for the murals of the Red Theater in Leningrad, the interior of which was designed according to his design. In 1932-33. headed the experimental laboratory at the Russian Museum. The work of Malevich in the last period of his life gravitated towards the realistic school of Russian painting. In 1933, a serious illness arose, which led the artist to death. According to his will, he was buried in Nemchinovka, a holiday village near Moscow. Painter, graphic artist, teacher, art theorist. In 1895-1896 he studied at the Kyiv Drawing School, in the mid-1900s he attended classes at the Moscow School of Sculpture and Architecture and the Stroganov School, studied at a private studio in Moscow.
Landscape with white houses
Red cavalry
Participated in many exhibitions initiated by Mikhail Larionov, as well as in the events of the St. Petersburg society "Union of Youth" (1911-1914).
In 1915, at an exhibition in Petrograd, he showed thirty-nine canvases under the general title "Suprematism in Painting", including his most famous work, "Black Square". Suprematist non-objectivity was considered as a new stage of artistic consciousness.
flower girl
spring landscape
From the end of 1919 to the spring of 1922 he lived and worked in Vitebsk. After moving to Petrograd (1923), he headed the Museum of Artistic Culture, later the State Institute of Artistic Culture (Ginkhuk, closed in 1926), where Nikolai Suetin, Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, Anna Leporskaya studied and worked under his leadership.
Black square and red square
black cross
After a trip to Poland and Germany (1927) he returned to figurative painting. In 1928-32. created more than a hundred paintings and many drawings included in the "second peasant cycle". He showed most of them at a solo exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery in 1929.
Black square
