Kazimir Malevich 22nd March

Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich was a painter and art theoretician, pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement. His ideas about forms and meaning in art would eventually constitute the theoretical underpinnings of non-objective, or abstract, art. Malevich worked in a variety of styles, but his most important and famous works concentrated on the exploration of pure geometric forms (squares, triangles, and circles) and their relationships to each other and within the pictorial space. Malevich was able to transmit his ideas about painting to his fellow artists in Europe and the United States, thus profoundly influencing the evolution of modern art.

Kazimir Malevich believed that art should transcend subject matter. The truth of shape and colour should reign 'supreme' over the image or narrative. More radical than the Cubists or Futurists, at the same time that his Suprematist compositions proclaimed that paintings were composed of flat, abstract areas of paint, they also served up powerful and multi-layered symbols and mystical feelings of time and space. Malevich's believed his abstract art had an ability to lead us to our feelings, even to a new spirituality.

Malevich said,

"Feeling is the determining factor ... and thus art arrives at non-objective representation through Suprematism."

"No more 'likenesses of reality,' no idealistic images, nothing but a desert!"

"The black square on the white field was the first form in which nonobjective feeling came to be expressed. The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling."

His style of art was a visual language of simple shapes and colours. He used squares, circles and rectangles and only used a few colours to make his artwork. Suprematism was about seeing and feeling art in a new way. Just because he used a few colours and shapes, doesn’t mean his art is impersonal or cold. The trace of the artist’s brush strokes are visible in the paint and the slight change of colour on the canvas. His most famous piece was the Black Square. By reducing painting to a simple shape and a single colour, Malevich removed all the things art had always been about (such as animals, people, food and landscapes). That was why it was so radical at the time. Black Square became one of the most important works of modern art. It was so special that the painting was revealed to the world after months of secrecy and was hidden again for almost 50 years.

Suprematism only lasted six years. This made it a fairly uniform style. It is instantly recognisable, and associable with Malevich. Suprematism differed from Mondrian's style in that it did not arrange its geometric figures into a grid. Instead, they are spread out all over the canvas on a riot of different angles. Malevich's colours, while typically bright, were infinitely more varied than the primary colours used by Mondrian.

Malevich’s colourful abstract art still inspires and puzzles people today.