Kazimir Malevich, 3

Precursors of Suprematism

In 1913, Malevich painted the stage sets and designed the costumes for the opera Victory Over the Sun – a collaboration with Mikhail Matiushin (music, composed from the piano) and Alexei Kruchenykh (libretto).  The opera was conceived and produced in Zaum, a poetic form whose name translates as “beyond the mind.”  The goal of Zaum was to “communicate directly with the subconscious” by sound rather than representation [Laskewicz 1995].  Bowlt [1990] cited Malevich’s letters to show that this experience explicitly led Malevich to his Suprematist painting and writing:  Zaum poetry separated words and syllables from any specific objects or actions;  Malevich recognized that painting could be separated from any specific objects, figures, or settings [Lunn 2020].  For this explicitly non-rational production, Malevich produced sets and costumes that contained large, geometric blocks of color.

 In 1914, Malevich delivered a talk in Moscow, and later described it “On February 19, 1914, I rejected reason in a public lecture” [Shatskikh 2012: 4].  Reason and logic, applied to visual art, motivated attempts to order the world through carefully composed representations, whether idealized or dystopian.  He developed a non-sense, anti-esthetic approach to painting he called Fevralism, referring to the month of the lecture.

Tupitsyn [2019] provided a 1918 quote of Alexander Rodchenko: “The present belongs to artists who are anarchists of art.” She also referenced the contemporaneous diary of the artist Vavara Stepanova to interpret non-objectivism as both a change in the formal nature of painting and an embrace of political anarchy after the fall of czarist Russia.

Malevich first used the term ‘nonobjective’ in his brochure ‘From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Painterly Realism’ (1916), writing in advance of—but also as though about—his later white paintings: ‘I transformed myself in the zero of form and emerged from nothing to . . . nonobjective creation.’  This endorsement of a ground-zero regime of painting amply corresponds to a post-revolutionary atmosphere marked by erasure of the toppled political system, including its cultural institutions [Tupitsyn 2019].

Bowlt, John E.  1990.  Malevich and the energy of language.  Pp. 179-86 in Kazimir Malevich, ed. by Jeanne D’Andrea.  Exhibition catalogue.  Los Angeles:  The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center.

Laskewicz, Achar.  1995.  Zaum: words without meaning or meaning without words?  Paper presented at the International Summer Congresses for Structural and Semiotic Studies, Imatra, Finland, June 10-16, 1995.   http://users.belgacom.net/nachtschimmen/zaumpaper.htm

Shatskikh, Aleksandra, trans. by Marian Schwartz.  2012.  Black Square: Malevich and the Origin of Suprematism.  New Haven:  Yale University Press.

Tupitsyn, Margarita.  2019.  The subject of nonobjective art.  Post (1 May).  https://post.moma.org/the-subject-of-nonobjective-art/ (Accessed 5 Nov 2020).

Kazimir Malevich, 2

What does “Suprematism” mean?

Malevich first wrote the term Suprematism, in reference to his 1915 works, in a letter dated 24 September (old calendar) 1915.  In 1927 Malevich wrote “Under Suprematism I understand the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art [italics added].  To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless;  the significant thing is feeling [that[ is called forth.” Art historians suggest that Malevich selected the term to claim superior conceptual ground for totally abstract painting. 

Malevich’s Suprematist paintings and drawings eschew any representation of objects, people, or landscapes, except for his own visual interpretation of the feelings that such things invoke – in him, but his writing suggests that he perceived those feelings to be widespread.  Instead of visual representation, his work relies on rectilinear forms (occasionally circles or half circles) rendered in solid (or nearly solid) color (especially black, reds, and white) on a white background. (More about these colors in future posts.)

Kazimir Malevich, 1

Kazimir Malevich was born in Kiev in February 1878, to parents of Polish descent.  He took drawing and painting classes in his late teens, and began painting scenes in the Ukrainian countryside.  He moved to Moscow in 1904 and studied at the Moscow School of painting, Sculpture, and Architecture through his late 20s.  During these years his style developed from naturalism to neo-impressionist to expressionist.  Exposed to Cubist and Futurist paintings in 1909-10, he developed affinity for and mastery of those artistic approaches over the next five years.

 In December 1915, 0.10, The Last Futurist Exhibition was held in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).  Malevich exhibited 39 “completely nonrepresentational works for the first time, presented as the ‘new painterly realism’” including Black Square (1915).  He followed that exhibit with brochures and lectures extolling “Suprematism” as “the New Realism of Painting, to Absolute Creation” and “The New Painterly Realism.”  

During the Russian Revolution (1917-23), the Tenth State Exhibition: Nonobjective Art and Suprematism was held in Moscow (1919).  Malevich exhibited 16 Suprematist paintings in the exhibit, including Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918).

From 1928, Malevich’s painting shifted to highly stylized depictions of farmers and workers, almost certainly motivated by political pressure.  Between 1929 and 1934, increasing resistance to artistic pluralism in general and non-representational art in particular culminated in a statement from the Congress of Soviet Writers claimed “Socialist Realism as the exclusive style for Soviet writers and artists.”  Indeed, in 1934 socialist realism became the only painting style that could be taught or publicly exhibited in the Soviet Union.

On 15 May 1935, Malevich died of cancer at home in Leningrad (St. Petersberg).  In the words of Russian scholar Aleksandra Shatskikh, “From the mid-1930s to the late 1980s, there was [and had been] no artist in the Soviet Union by the name of Kazimir Malevich.”

Why did Malevich embrace completely “non-objective” art?  What led Malevich to the Black Square, which he termed “the zero point” for painting?  Why call his new insight “Suprematism”?  How did Suprematism relate to Russian Constructivism?  What awful discovery was made about Black Square, 100 years after its creation? 

Non-objective art

As you know, I love visual abstraction.  “Abstract” art may reflect something actually seen – but abstracted to heighten the impact.  Impressionist paintings are great examples of this, as are Expressionist paintings.  Further back in time, Mannerist painting elongated limbs and exaggerated human gestures, to heighten the drama of scenes that the viewer can interpret from their own experiences. 

One extreme of abstraction is often called “non-objective,” because it contains no reference to actual objects.  This is discomforting for some viewers, who want to relate a painting to something familiar or even to some thing imagined.  However, it gives the mind totally free rein to interpret meanings or to revel in the visual stimulation without meanings.  Non-objective pieces are “ever green” – always fresh for the viewer, who can see something different at each viewing.

Automaton (https://www.jwharrington.com/other-abstractions/automaton) is such a piece, presenting bold colors against a white background.  (Against white, even black appears as a bold color.)  I painted this as flat as possible, using acrylic gouache, to provide no texture – just color and shape.

Cusp (https://www.jwharrington.com/other-abstractions) is a new favorite of mine, because it uses a mix of pigments (Cobalt Blue and Ultramarine Blue) to yield a blue so “deep” I feel I can swim in it.  To heighten the contrast, I’ve surrounded the blue (graded from pale to deep) with white.  And what role does that bright red circle (or sphere?) play in the composition?

Color Abstraction 30 (https://www.jwharrington.com/color-abstractions) continues the series I’ve been working on for years:  each painting is 24” x 24”, with strictly straight lines or shapes on a solid background.  Here we have interlaced rectangles in white, Cobalt Blue, and a rich, ruddy brown.  I’ve created several interpretations of this composition, and have placed it in the entry of our house, where I can create new interpretations every time I come home.  (I only wish that others could visit and see it – it could be a great conversation piece.)