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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: "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, 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 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. 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 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 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, "Black Square" is rectangular trapezoid, but for someone it is a deep philosophical message, which was encrypted by a 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?

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. Disembodied geometric elements float 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 global general development humanity.

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 upheavals 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 a square in a circle, Malevich obtained the geometric figures of a cross and a 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, in his own words, expressed the sensations of life, such as soaring, flying, harmony, disharmony, hovering, etc. The same sensations can be perceived only by other few owners of sound and visual vectors, who understand and are specially 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 forms acquire 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, as a structure moving, growing and changing, as if it were alive.

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 of a good work of art includes the payment for many thousands of bad works, which someone still needs to write, so that with accumulated experience, someone wrote 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 mankind

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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The painting "Black Square" by Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) is one of the most famous works of art of the last century. It was written in 1915 and became a turning point in the development of the Russian avant-garde. The author of the painting is considered the creator of a new direction in painting - Suprematism, which became a real challenge to everything that was before in the visual arts.

A picture that draws attention

Despite its apparent simplicity, the painting "Black Square" always attracts great attention and occupies a special place in the exhibition space. Malevich wrote that Suprematism can be divided into three stages, according to its three squares - black, red and white. The most notable of the three was the Black Square painting. It was written neatly, in a single black tone, without smears and streaks.

Malevich's philosophy was based on everything that had accumulated in the literature and art of that period, and at the same time ran counter to what he had tried earlier. The result of this was the emergence of a new pictorial religion, in which the starting point was reflected on the dial - zero. A whole concept was created - from cubism to suprematism.

Audacious challenge

The painting "Black Square" with its harsh simplicity and openness of challenge in relation to other pictorial forms caused a real storm in the art world. The purity and clarity of the work of Kazimir Malevich became a revolutionary new way of perception and sowed confusion in the ranks of the intelligentsia, which adhered to the traditional way of thinking. It was an attempt to establish a new world order, which sets itself the difficult task of recoding the world and starting communication in a previously unknown cosmic language. Malevich later even called himself the president of the space.

Clear sense of space

Suprematist paintings of the author embody a clear sense of space. Thick local colors fight among themselves in a state of complete plastic harmony. The white background is always clean and undiluted, and the non-objective pictures depicted on it are filled with chastity and lightness. The absence of heavy frames enhances the feeling of lightness and flight in space.

Malevich's painting Black Square was a key moment in his painting and became the subject of endless conversations and disputes. Students and associates of the artist accepted his revelation with enthusiasm and understanding, and soon they themselves began to create works that reflect the overwhelming influence of the master. Malevich's painting "The Black Square" on a white background has become a symbol, the main element in the system of Suprematism, a step into a new art.

The author about his work

Malevich said that in 1913, in a desperate attempt to free art from the ballast of objectivity, he took refuge in a square and showed a picture that consisted only of a black square on a white canvas. The critics and the public only sighed, because everything they loved is lost, they felt like in a desert... Before them there was only a black square on a white background!

Malevich lamented that the square turned out to be incomprehensible and dangerous for critics and the public ... But he expected this: the contours of the objective world disappeared more and more, and so on, step by step, until, finally, the world and everything that they loved and than lived, lost sight of. But the desert is filled with the spirit of a non-objective sensation that pervades everything. The blissful feeling of liberation of bias attracted the artist back to the desert, where there is nothing real, except for feeling ... So feeling became the main thing in his life.

The black square is a feeling

This is not just an empty square, it is, according to the author, rather a feeling of bias. Suprematism is a rediscovery pure art, which over time became noticeable due to the accumulation of things. But the nature and meaning of artistic creation continues to be misunderstood, because feeling, after all, always and everywhere is the only source of all creation. Emotions that ignite in a person are stronger than the person himself.

Paintings by Kazimir Malevich: "Black Square"

Titles such as "Dead Square" and "Void" were given by critics. For Malevich, however, this square symbolizes feeling, and the white field around the figure represents complete emptiness. The author does not concentrate on a specific subject and refers to the purity of mathematical geometry.

However, the "Black Square" is not as simple as it seems. Even accepting art of the zero degree, Malevich makes a point of intense perception of the drawing, which can be read in two ways, either it is a black square on a white background, or it is a black hole surrounded by a white border. Each object has a static facade and internal dynamics. This is the description of the painting "Black Square".

Revolutionary Symbol and Dynamic Suprematism

So what is Suprematism? The concept created by Malevich primarily reflects the superiority of color in painting. The artist took geometric figures, a limited palette and created a special emphasis on painted forms that exist on canvas in their purest form, without scenes, landscapes and people.

The painting "Black Square" by Malevich (photo can be seen in the article) is not the first in the new movement, a completely different type of object was chosen here than before. Despite the author's assurances that this was the first Suprematist painting, the so-called pure zero, pure beginning, modern science and x-rays can shed light on this dark history.

The history of the painting "Black Square"

It was in the middle of World War I, after the 1905 revolution, during the ongoing turmoil. Just a few years after the picture was painted, in 1917, the Bolshevik uprising and the Great October Revolution would break out.

The painting "Black Square" (the photo below can be seen in the article) appeared at a time when Russian society, although familiar with cubism and futuristic work, had not encountered work like this one. It was difficult to imagine Malevich's artistic revolution apart from social revolution that was going on in society at the time. The artist was not going to depict any specific and real thing - it was a sign of the New Age.

At the exhibition of futuristic painting

When Malevich presented his black square at the exhibition futuristic painting, which took place in Petrograd in December 1915, he was interested in demonstrating Suprematism and his new idea. The work was placed high on the wall in the corner of the room, where Malevich's "Black Square" signified more than just a painting. It was the most sacred place where an Orthodox icon was hung in a traditional Russian home, people in Petrograd were no exception. Malevich wanted to give his work a special spiritual significance, to make it the center of the exposition and the most important emblem of his new style.

In his further activity, the artist repeatedly returned to figurative painting, he signed many of his works with a small black square. At his funeral, mourners held flags emblazoned with this symbol. One of the flags was fixed in the Suprematist style on the coffin of the deceased. A black square is depicted on his monument near the lost burial site.

The black square has become not only calling card its creator, but also an icon of art of the twentieth century.

strange picture

It's been over a century since the work was written, but people still find it a bit odd. What is the meaning of the painting "Black Square"? Some see it as a window into the night or into afterworld, others see just a black figure on a white canvas. Malevich intended to change the idea of ​​painting forever in order to present reality in a more intriguing light, to do something simple and nondescript, but at the same time revolutionary. The legendary work that marked the beginning of non-objective art was exhibited for the first time on December 7, 1915.

Where is the painting "Black Square" today? There were several of them, the first work (1913) and the third (1923) are stored in Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the second (1923) - in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

All the secret becomes clear

Why is the work written by Kazimir Malevich - "Black Square" so mysterious? The meaning of the picture for some seems infinitely deep, while others do not see it there at all. It turns out that two whole images are hidden under famous masterpiece. In November 2015, it became known that not only one, as previously thought, but two whole color paintings were hidden under a black square.

Scientists have deciphered an inscription believed to have been left by Kazimir Malevich. There were such words: "The battle of the Negroes in dark cave." Surprisingly, a painting with this name was already painted by the French artist Alphonse Allais (1854-1905). It is likely that Malevich painted his creation on top of other images, but the "Black Square" was more of a manifesto than a painting, therefore, everything connected with it looks like one big and dark secret.

Kazimir Malevich: the man who freed painting

The famous artist was born in Ukraine, but was of Polish origin. IN adolescence he taught himself to draw, trying on the methods of folk art. In 1907 he moved to permanent place residence in Moscow. He studied realism, impressionism and symbolism, gradually delving into the history of art.

Important to its development were two collections of art from the west. The works of Monet, Gauguin, Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso inspired him even more in pursuit of the avant-garde style, he was especially attracted to cubism and futurism. This was followed by a period of isolation, which gave him the First World War. It was then, cut off from external irritation, that he was able to take a big step, which resulted in the emergence of a new direction - Suprematism.

New understanding of empirical reality

His own compositions have a complex theoretical basis, which is why he uses such bold abstract language with such ease.

The artist's work was often associated with mysticism because of his literary interests. His books were often philosophical in nature. He was fascinated by ideas about the fourth dimension. However, his perception of art was decisively influenced by the views of the Russian formalist Roman Yakobson and the poetic innovations of Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov. He shared with these poets his desire to explode conventional logic in order to arrive at a new understanding of empirical reality.

He was also indebted to his fellow artists Natalya Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, who kindled in him a passion for folk art and instilled an interest in the power of icons. As an artist, teacher and revolutionary, Malevich sought to overturn centuries of painting, rooted in Renaissance ideals. This art, he stated, was purely aesthetic, unlike Suprematism. It is argued that the author of the black square went further than Picasso or Matisse.

Kazimir Malevich was the founder of the artistic and philosophical school of Suprematism. His ideas about forms and meaning in art are theoretical basis non-objective or abstract art. Malevich worked in a variety of styles, but his most important and well-known works are focused on the study of pure geometric shapes (squares, triangles and circles) and their relationship to each other in pictorial space.

"Black Square" - an icon of the Russian avant-garde

Suprematism was one of the most influential trends in abstract art of the 20th century. It was characterized by simple geometric shapes: a straight line, a rectangle, a circle, a square on a light background meant the infinity of space. The ideas of Suprematism were successfully embodied in architecture, scenography, graphics and industrial design. Unlike many other "...isms", the names for which were invented after the fact by art historians, Suprematism owes its birth, existence, development, theoretical justification, promotion to the masses and even speculative-cosmic prospects to just one person - Kazimir Severinovich Malevich.

Suprematism is an art that struggles to break out of natural forms in the direction of geometric abstraction. The birth of the "Black Square" was not an act of rational consciousness or the result of a carefully planned strategy - its appearance was unexpected and mystical even for the artist himself. As one of his students recalls, he could neither eat nor sleep for a whole week since he painted the picture.

A child could paint such a simple picture, although children would not have the patience to fill such a large area with one color. Any draftsman could do this job, but draftsmen are not interested in simple geometric shapes. A similar picture can be made by a mentally ill person, but if he did, it is unlikely that he would have the slightest chance of getting into the exhibition and being in right time and in right place. It was Malevich who became the author of "Black Square", one of the most famous, mysterious and frightening works of art in the world.

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 in our history turned out to be Suprematist - although scary: in the tragic Civil War, the Reds showed the Whites for all future times, where the power of the victorious is.

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; largest art critic of that time I 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! 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. Century mass culture simple solutions are needed. Of course black! The color of our indestructible aggressiveness.

Malevich's works are one of the most striking manifestations of modern abstract art. The founder of Suprematism, the 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. Any cultured person should be familiar with the most famous works of the artist.

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. About 300 masters of painting lived in the huge house of the artist Kurdyumov. 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 of the creative association of the early avant-garde. 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, it was represented by Malevich himself, but he soon had to return, as 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 most terrible picture in the history of Russian 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 "Battle of the Negroes in a 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 a 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, it was in the private collection of 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 graphic works. 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 late realistic portraits are presented, on which one cannot 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.