Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian painter and art theoretician. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the avant-garde, Suprematist movement.
In Malevich‘s abstract works he used only basic geometrical shapes and a severely restricted range of colour.
Malevich was also interested in aerial photography and aviation, which led him to abstractions inspired by or derived from aerial landscapes.
Speaking about his the most famous artwork… Yes, that’s, obviously, the“Black Square”.
One of the most famous paintings in Russian art, the “Black Square” marked the turning point of the Russian avant-garde movement. Before creating this painting, Malevich spent eighteen months in his studio, laboring over thirty non-objective paintings. In the end, he had created a series of non-objective paintings, of which Black Square is one. His invention of the word “suprematism” was meant to refer to the supremacy of the new geometric forms.
You know, everytime I see this picture, the only phrase comes up to my head. “As simple as that” – that is the phrase hah. However, I find this work brilliant. How do you think why?
The answer is that the painting is an icon of emptiness and death. Moreover, the “Black Square” is one of modern art’s most extreme statements, a reduction of art to an absolute zero from which a new art will be born. We can’t help looking at it with the knowledge that Russia was on the verge of revolution when this eerie object was created. It is an image full of foreboding and menace, as if something mighty is about to happen – as if world is about to end.
To my mind, the “Black Square” looks back bleakly at life. It seems to suck out energy and create an uncanny stillness. In Dostoevsky‘s novel “The Idiot”, a character gazes at Hans Holbein‘s painting called “The Daed Christ” and comments that it could destroy someone’s religious faith.
Obviously, Malevich painted an icon of emptiness that can destroy your faith in history, progress, art.
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