Malevich interesting facts. Malevich's White Square: features, history and interesting facts. Encrypted meaning or nonsense

The result of any drawing is a painting. This statement would be true if Kazimir Malevich had not proven the opposite. In 1915, he painted "Black Square on a White Background" and made a shocking confession: "This is not painting, this is something else."
A little later, the artist and art theorist El Lissitzky stated that “Black Square” is a complete opposition to everything that is meant by the concepts of “art”, “painting” and “picture”. And that Malevich reduced all forms and all painting to absolute zero.
More than 90 years have passed since the appearance of "Black Square", but it still excites minds and imagination, and still causes heated debate. An absolutely black square image, painted in oil and framed with white canvas. In Malevich's scandalous masterpiece there is nothing of traditional signs masterpiece.

However, as the artist himself predicted, this drawing, made unconsciously, or rather under the influence of “cosmic consciousness,” became the most important event in world art history. He freed the concept of painting from all its traditional laws, reduced it to the zero form, designated the square as a new, basic “primary figure” of the new art, which Kazimir Malevich called Suprematism, which means superiority, dominance.
He calls the "Black Square" a "naked icon without a frame" and himself the Chairman of the Space. He openly declares his intention to “slaughter the art of painting, put it in a coffin and seal it with a Black Square.”

In 1882, young French writer and publisher Jules Lévy founded the group "The Salon of the Inconsistents," which consisted of artists, writers, poets and other representatives of the Parisian bohemians of the late 19th century. This association did not pursue any political goals. The group's slogan was the phrase "Art is inconsistent", coined by Levy in defiance of the common phrase "les arts decoratifs". The Salon of the Inconsistents mocked official values ​​through satire, humor, and sometimes crude jokes. The paintings that were shown at the Salon exhibitions were not “paintings” in the traditional sense at all. These were funny cartoons, absurd nightmares, drawings as if drawn by children. On October 1, 1882, the “Salon of the Inconsistents” opens an exhibition in Paris with the whimsical title “The Art of the Inconsistents.” The exhibition featured works by six authors who can be considered the forerunners of surrealism, which emerged 40 years later. The most provocative of the paintings was a single-color, pitch-black image by the poet Paul Bilhaud, called Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night. Such a black rectangle.

No statements about the conceptual meaning of the painting. No suggestion to look closely and find hidden meaning a black rectangle framed by a playful vignette. Just a funny picture. Moreover, the joke is not even in the picture, but in its title. Indeed, when blacks fight in the basement at night, you can’t see anything and everything is black!
Bilford's humorous idea was developed by the artist Alphonse Allais. At the Incoherent shows of 1883, he exhibited the painting “Pale Young Girls Going to their First Communion in the Snow,” which is a white rectangle.

At the 1884 exhibition, he shows another monochrome drawing - a red rectangle entitled Apoplectic Cardinals Harvesting Tomatoes by the Shores of the Red Sea.

Then Alphonse Allais expanded his collection with Blue, Green, Gray Rectangles and published a book with these works, supplementing them with a blank musical score called “Funeral March for the Deaf.” It must be admitted that Alla was a great dreamer and humorist.
In the monochrome works of French jokers, the concept of absence was belittled by a humorous title. In the monochrome works of Kazimir Malevich, the same concept was reinforced by a meaningless title. After all, “Black Square” is not a name, it’s just a statement.
The most important thing is that the inconsistent Parisian humorists of the late 19th century did not tell the world anything about sacred sense their works. Maybe because he wasn't there. Malevich was much more serious. He tirelessly sculpted the reputation of his masterpiece, taking advantage of everyone possible ways. As a result, only specialists know the names of the “inconsistent” today, but the whole world knows the name of Malevich. Currently, there are four “Black Squares” in Russia: in Moscow and St. Petersburg there are exactly two “Squares”: two in Tretyakov Gallery one in the Russian Museum and one in the Hermitage. One of the canvases belongs to the Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin, who purchased it from Inkombank in 2002 for 1 million US dollars (32 million rubles) and transferred this very first, and therefore the most important of the existing versions of the canvas depicting “Black square" by the founder of Suprematism.

Here are some more of his works.

Name: Kazimir Malewicz

Age: 56 years old

Activity: painter, set designer, art theorist, teacher

Family status: was married

Kazimir Malevich: biography

The paintings of Kazimir Malevich are known to millions, but only a few understand them. Some of the artist’s paintings frighten and irritate with their simplicity, others delight and fascinate with their depth and secret meanings. Malevich created for a select few, but did not leave anyone indifferent.

Having lived a life full of searches, the pioneer of the Russian avant-garde gave his descendants everything that art lives on today, and his paintings, paradoxically, look more modern than those painted by his followers.

Childhood and youth

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was born in Kyiv on February 23, 1879. The artist’s biography is mysterious and full of “blank spots”. Some call the year of birth of the future cubist 1879, others - 1978. By official version Malevich was born in Kyiv, but there are those who are inclined to believe small homeland the artist is the Belarusian town of Kopyl, and Kazimir’s father is the Belarusian ethnographer and folklorist Severin Malevich.

If we adhere to the official version, then the parents baptized Kazimir Malevich in mid-March 1879 in the Kiev Church of St. Alexander, as evidenced by the archival entry in the parish register.

The father of the future abstractionist, nobleman Severin Malevich, was born in the town of Turbov, Podolsk province. Russian Empire(today Vinnytsia region of Ukraine). In Turbovo, Severin Antonovich worked as a manager at the sugar factory of industrialist Nikolai Tereshchenko. Kazimir Malevich’s mother, Ludwiga Aleksandrovna Galinovskaya, looked after the house and raised numerous offspring: the Malevichs had fourteen children, but nine of them lived to adulthood - five sons and four daughters.

Kazimir is the first-born of the Malevich couple. The family communicated in Polish language, but they knew Ukrainian and Russian. Future artist considered himself a Pole, but during the period of indigenization, he was recorded as Ukrainian in his questionnaires.

Until the age of 12, Kazimir Malevich lived in the village of Moevka, Yampol district, Podolsk province, but because of his father’s work, until he was 17, he lived for a year and a half in the villages of Kharkov, Chernigov and Sumy provinces.

As a child, Kazimir Malevich knew little about drawing. The teenager showed interest in canvas and paint at the age of 15, when his son and his father visited Kyiv. At the exhibition, young Malevich saw a portrait of a girl sitting on a bench peeling potatoes that struck him. The painting became the starting point for the desire to take up a brush. Noticing this, my mother bought her son a set of paints for his birthday.

Casimir's passion for drawing turned out to be so great that the 17-year-old son begged his father for permission to enter the Kyiv Art School, founded by the Russian Itinerant artist Nikolai Murashko. But Malevich studied in Kyiv for only a year: in 1896 the family moved to Kursk.

Painting

The first painting in technology oil painting, belonging to the brush of Malevich, appeared in Konotop. 16-year-old Kazimir depicted a moonlit night and a river with a boat moored on the shore on a three-quarter arshin-sized canvas. The work was called " Moonlight night" Malevich's first painting was sold for 5 rubles and lost.

After moving to Kursk, Kazimir Malevich got a job as a draftsman in the management of the Russian government railway. Painting became an outlet from boring and unloved work: the young artist organized a circle in which like-minded people gathered.

Two years after moving to Kursk, Malevich organized the first exhibitions of paintings, which he wrote about in his Autobiography, but there was no documentary evidence left. In 1899, Kazimir married, but soon family life, routine work in management and the provincialism of the city pushed the artist to change: Kazimir Malevich, leaving his family in Kursk, went to Moscow.

In August 1905, Malevich submitted a petition to the capital’s school of painting, sculpture and architecture, but was refused. Kazimir did not return to his family in Kursk, but for 7 rubles a month he rented a room in the Lefortovo art commune, where three dozen “communards” lived. Six months later, the money ran out, and Kazimir Malevich returned home.

In the summer of 1906, he made a second futile attempt to enter the capital's school. But this time the artist moved to Moscow with his family: Malevich, his wife and children lived in an apartment rented by his mother. Ludviga Alexandrovna worked as the manager of a canteen on Tverskaya Street. After the canteen was robbed and ruined, the family moved to the furnished rooms of an apartment building on Bryusov Lane.

The desire to learn prompted Kazimir Malevich to visit the studio of the Russian artist Fyodor Rerberg. For three years, starting in 1907, the artist studied voraciously. In 1910, he participated in the first exhibition of the artist society “Jack of Diamonds” - a major creative association early avant-garde. “Bubnovaletovtsy” are known for breaking with the traditions of realistic painting. In the association, Malevich met Pyotr Konchalovsky, Ivan Klyun, Aristarkh Lentulov and Mikhail Larionov. This is how Kazimir Malevich took the first step towards a new direction - avant-garde.

Cubism and Suprematism

Also in 1910, Malevich’s works participated in the first exhibition of artists of the “Jack of Diamonds”. In the winter of 1911, Kazimir Severinovich’s paintings were exhibited at the exhibition of the Moscow Salon society, and in the spring they participated in the exhibition of the first association of avant-garde artists in St. Petersburg, the Youth Union.

In 1912, Kazimir Malevich went to Munich, where he participated in a joint exhibition of works by the Youth Union and German expressionists Society "Blue Rider". During this period, the artist joined the group of young colleagues of the association “ donkey tail”, which existed until 1913 and revealed Niko Pirosmanishvili to the world.

The work of avant-garde artists intersected with the work of futurist poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh. Kazimir Malevich illustrated self-written books by Khlebnikov and Kruchenykh, and in 1913 he created scenery and costume designs for the opera “Victory over the Sun,” the text of which was written by Kruchenykh. The opera was performed twice at the Luna Park Theater in St. Petersburg. Malevich's decorations are a three-dimensional embodiment of paintings from that period and consist of geometric figures. Kazimir Malevich called these paintings “abstruse realism” and “cubo-futuristic realism.”

IN autobiographical memories Malevich said that the idea for “Black Square” was born while working on Kruchenykh’s opera: the artist “saw” his square on the backdrop of the set.

In 1915, Malevich participated in the first futurist exhibition “Tram B” in Petrograd and wrote the manifesto “From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism." In the manifesto, Kazimir Malevich substantiated a new direction of avant-gardeism - suprematism (from the Latin suprem - dominance), of which he was the founder. According to Malevich’s plan, color dominates over the other properties of painting and paint on canvases is “liberated” from an auxiliary role. In Suprematist works, the artist balanced the creative power of man and Nature.

In December 1915 (new style – January 1916) at the futuristic exhibition “0.10” Kazimir Malevich exhibited 39 canvases, united under the title “Suprematism of Painting”. Among the exhibited works there was a place for him famous work"Black square". The painting is part of a triptych that includes “Black Circle” and “Black Cross”.

The Amsterdam City Museum houses Malevich's canvas “Suprematism. Self-Portrait in Two Dimensions”, painted in 1915. To convey his own “I”, the master used a minimum of colors and geometric figures with corners. In his self-portrait, Kazimir Malevich “confessed” to an intractable, “prickly” character and stubbornness. But red and yellow colors“dilute” the gloomy characteristic, and the small ring in the center “speaks” of communication with the outside world.

Malevich's Suprematism influenced Russian artists Olga Rozanova, Ivan Klyun, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Lyubov Popova, Mstislav Yurkevich. They joined the Supremus society organized by Kazimir Malevich.

In the summer of 1917, Kazimir Malevich headed the Art Section of the Moscow Council of Soldiers' Deputies and was among the developers of the People's Academy of Arts project. In October, Malevich became chairman of the Jack of Diamonds, and in November the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee appointed the artist commissar for the protection of ancient monuments. He joined the Security Commission artistic values, including the values ​​of the Kremlin. New power favored the artists who made a revolution in art.

In 1918, Kazimir Malevich moved to Petrograd, where he created the sets and costumes for Vsevolod Meyerhold’s production of “Mystery-Bouffe” based on the play. This time marks the period of Malevich’s “white suprematism”. Researchers call the canvas “White on White” a striking example (another name is “ White square»).

In 1919, Kazimir Malevich returned to Moscow, where he was appointed head of the “Workshop for the Study of the New Art of Suprematism.”

In the winter of 1919, at the height of civil war, the avant-garde artist moved to Vitebsk, where he headed the Narodny workshop art school"a new revolutionary model." He headed the school. In the same year, Malevich’s students joined the UNOVIS (Adopters of New Art) group that he created, which developed the direction of Suprematism. Lazar Khidekel, who created architectural Suprematism, was elected Chairman of the Tworkom (Creative Committee) of UNOVIS. During these years, Kazimir Malevich focused on developing a new direction and writing philosophical treatises.

Later, under conditions of persecution of avant-garde art, the ideas of Suprematism in the Soviet Union “flowed” into design, scenography and architecture.

In 1922, the theorist and philosopher completed his main work “Suprematism. The world as non-objectivity or eternal peace” and moved with his students from Vitebsk to Petrograd.

We got acquainted with Malevich’s work in Berlin: the avant-garde artist’s paintings were shown at the First Russian art exhibition.

In 1923, Kazimir Malevich became the acting director of the Petrograd Museum of Artistic Culture. Together with UNOVIS students, he is engaged in research work.

From 1924 to 1926 - director of the Leningradsky state institute artistic culture, where he headed the formal theoretical department. But after the devastating article “Monastery on State Supply” published in July, the institute was closed, and the collection of works ready for publication was canceled. Soviet authority turned away from representatives of “reactionary” art.

The persecution intensified in 1927, when Kazimir Malevich visited Germany. At the annual art exhibition in Berlin, the artist was provided with a hall for his works, but, having received an official letter demanding his return, he urgently left for Leningrad.

Malevich, expecting the worst, wrote his will, leaving his paintings, including “White Square,” in the care of the von Riesen family and the architect Hugo Hering. During the war, 15 works disappeared; the remaining paintings are kept in the Amsterdam City Museum. Kazimir Malevich sold the painting “Morning after a Blizzard in the Village” in Berlin. The canvas is on display at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The authorities did not forgive Malevich for his recognition in the West and his trip to Germany. In 1930, Kazimir Malevich was arrested on suspicion of international espionage. The reaction of Western media and colleagues forced the authorities to release the artist after 2 months. The fear of punishment did not break Malevich, and he “tells” through brush and canvas the truth that he sees: the peasants in the cubist’s paintings are mannequins without faces against the backdrop of fertile fields. This is how Kazimir Malevich sees the population of villages after dispossession and collectivization.

The authorities' hostility towards the artist grew: an exhibition of Malevich's works in Kyiv was criticized, and in the fall he was again put in prison, accused of anti-Soviet propaganda. But in December, Kazimir Malevich was released.

After his second prison stint, the cubist created canvases of the second “peasant cycle,” marking the stage of “post-suprematism,” characterized by the flatness of the depicted torsos. A striking example– painting “To the Harvest (Martha and Vanka).”

In 1931, the artist worked on sketches for the painting of the Baltic House (formerly the Red Theater). The following year, Malevich was appointed head of the Experimental Laboratory of the Russian Museum and participated in anniversary exhibition"Artists of the RSFSR for 15 years." For this exhibition, according to biographers, Kazimir Malevich wrote the last, fourth version of “Black Square,” which is kept in the Hermitage.

In the last three years, the avant-garde artist has been painting portraits in the genre of realism. Malevich never finished working on the painting “Social City”.

The peculiarity of Kazimir Malevich’s painting is the technique of applying paints one on top of the other. To obtain a red spot, the artist applied red to the bottom black layer. The viewer saw the color not as pure red, but with a hint of darkness. Experts, knowing Malevich’s secret, easily identified fakes of his paintings.

Personal life

In 1896, Kazimir Malevich and his parents moved to Kursk. Three years later, the 20-year-old draftsman married the daughter of a local baker, Kazimira Zlejc. The wedding turned out to be a double one: Kazimira’s brother, Mieczyslaw, married Kazimira’s sister Maria.

In 1992, the couple had their first child, Anatoly (he died of typhoid at the age of 15). And in 1995, daughter Galina appeared.

The couple's life together began to crack soon after the birth of their children: the wife considered her husband's passion for drawing to be self-indulgence. Malevich left for Moscow, and the couple's relationship worsened.

Personal life things didn’t work out even after the family reunification in Moscow: Kazimira took the children and got a job as a paramedic in a psychiatric hospital in the village of Meshcherskoye in the Moscow region. Soon the woman fell in love and, leaving her son and daughter in the care of a colleague, left with her lover in an unknown direction.

Kazimir Malevich came to Meshcherskoye for children and met Sofia Rafalovich, the woman in whose care the children remained. In 1909, Sophia and Kazimir got married, and in 1920 they had a daughter, Una, named after UNOVIS.

The wife supported her husband’s passion for creativity, took care of everyday problems, and while her husband improved his drawing technique, she earned money for the family. In 1925, the family idyll ended: Sophia died, leaving her husband with 5-year-old Una in her arms.

Kazimir Malevich married for the third time 2 years later: his wife was Natalya Manchenko, who was 23 years younger.

Death

In 1933, Malevich was given terrible diagnosis: prostate cancer. The disease progressed: in 1935 the master did not get out of bed. Poverty - Kazimir Malevich did not receive a pension from the Union of Artists - and incurable disease They quickly brought the master to his grave: he died on May 15.

Aware of his impending death, he designed his final resting place - a Suprematist cruciform coffin in which his body lay with his arms outstretched: "spread out on the ground and opening to the sky."

The students of Kazimir Malevich, as he bequeathed, made the coffin according to his sketches. They dressed the deceased genius in a white shirt, black trousers and red shoes. We said goodbye to the master in Leningrad and Moscow. The body was cremated in the Moscow Donskoy Crematorium and on May 21, the ashes were buried under the artist’s favorite oak tree near the village of Nemchinovka (Odintsovo district, Moscow region).

During the war years, the wooden monument with a painted black square was destroyed and the grave was lost.

After the war, enthusiasts established the location of the grave, but in this place there was an arable field. Therefore, they immortalized the burial site on a forest edge two kilometers away: a red square was placed on the front side of the white concrete cube. Today, next to the conventional grave, there is house No. 11; the street in Nemchinovka bears the artist’s name.

The collective farm field on which the ashes of Kazimir Malevich rest was built with elite residential complex"Romashkovo-2". In August 2013, the master’s relatives sealed the soil from the burial site into capsules, one was buried in Romashkovo, the others were transferred to the places where Kazimir Malevich lived.

• The genius of Cubism and Suprematism twice failed the exams at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
• In February 1914, the abstract artist took part in a shocking “futuristic demonstration”, during which he walked with his colleagues along the Kuznetsky Most, putting wooden Khokhloma spoons in his buttonholes.
• The painting “Red Cavalry Galloping” is the only abstraction by Malevich recognized official history Soviet art due to connection with October Revolution. The work is divided into three parts: earth, sky and people. In the ratio of the width of the earth and the sky, the artist used “ golden ratio"(proportion 0.618). The painting is kept in the St. Petersburg Russian Museum.

• The symbol of the avant-garde association “UNOVIS” created by Kazimir Malevich was a black square sewn onto the sleeve.
• As Kazimir Malevich bequeathed, Suprematist symbolism dominated at his funeral. The image of the square was on the coffin, in the hall of the civil funeral service and on the train carriage carrying the ashes to Moscow.
• There is a version about the creation of a faceted glass by Kazimir Malevich. The idea came to the artist in 1930, during his second stint in prison. Malevich shared his idea with the author of the “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” monument, Vera Mukhina, who involved her friends and launched the production of faceted glasses into mass production.

• The sisters of his second wife, Sofia Rafalovich, married artists Evgeny Katsman and Dmitry Toporkov, who stood at the origins of socialist realism. Socialist realists considered Malevich's work unworthy.
• After his death, Kazimir Malevich proposed a project for a monument to the leader. According to the abstractionist's idea, a mountain of agricultural tools was crowned with a cube as a symbol of eternity. The project was rejected.
• In 2008, at Sotheby's auction, I bought a painting by Kazimir Malevich “Suprematist Composition” Unknown person for $60 million. The canvas became the most expensive painting painted by an artist from Russia.

Famous paintings by Malevich

• "Black square"
• "White on white"
• "Black Circle"
• "Red Square"
• "Red Cavalry Gallops"
• "Suprematist composition"

A brilliant artist, one of the most misunderstood (or incomprehensible?), endlessly discussed (and condemned), but certainly recognized (especially abroad), innovators of the Russian visual arts– Kazimir Malevich, was the first of 14 children of the nobleman Severin Malevich, who lived with his wife Ludwiga Galinovskaya in the Vinnitsa province.

And until the age of 26 of his life, he was no different from many people, combining work as a draftsman with his passion for painting in his free time.

But the passion for creativity eventually prevailed and Malevich, who had managed to get married by that time, left his family and went to Moscow in 1905 to enroll in a painting school (where he was not accepted!).

From here begins his path to the domestic Olympus of great names, which was interrupted on May 15, 1935 by the death of Kazimir Severinovich - philosopher, teacher, theorist, renowned Soviet artist, who left his descendants a revolutionary legacy that had a huge impact on modern architecture and art; the founder of an entire movement in painting – Suprematism (the primacy of one primary color over other components: for example, in some of Malevich’s works, figures of bright colors are immersed in a “white abyss” - a white background).

Let's today, remembering the brilliant giant artist who once blew up the world with his works and ideas, let's get acquainted with the most interesting facts from his difficult and colorful life.

The most famous work Kazimir Malevich. There are only four paintings created in different time. The very first one, written in 1915, is in the Hermitage, where it was transferred by billionaire V. Potanin for indefinite storage (purchased for $1 million from Inkombank in 2002. It is surprising that low price immortal, the most famous Russian painting in the world, difficult to compare with prices for other works by Malevich, for example, “Suprematist Composition” was sold on November 3, 2008 for $60 million).

Two more versions of “Black Square” are in the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) and one in the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg).
In addition to the Suprematist “Black Square” (first invented by Malevich as a setting for the opera by M.V.

Matyushin “Victory over the Sun”, 1913) “Black Circle” and “Black Cross” were created.

Career

Never entered any educational institution the great self-taught Kazimir Malevich became the author of a number of scientific works, propagandist own direction in art, the creator of the group of like-minded avant-garde artists “UNOVIS” and the director of the Leningrad State Institute of Artistic Culture!

Wives

Having married at a young age (his wife bore the same name as him - Kazimira Zgleits), Malevich was forced to dissolve the marriage after moving to Moscow. Having taken two children, his wife left for the village of Meshcherskoye, getting a job as a paramedic in mental asylum, and then ran away, getting mixed up with a local doctor, throwing young children to one of her colleagues, Sofya Mikhailovna Rafalovich.

When Kazimir Malevich found out about this and came to pick up the children, he also took Sofya Mikhailovna to Moscow, who after some time became his second wife.

Jail

In 1930, an exhibition of the artist’s works was criticized, after which he was arrested and spent many months in an OGPU prison, accused of espionage.

grave

Malevich's body was cremated in a coffin made according to his design. An urn with ashes was lowered under an oak tree, near the village of Nemchinovka (Odintsovo Moscow district region), installing a wooden monument over it: a cube with a black square (made by Kazimir Malevich’s student, Nikolai Suetin).

A few years later, the grave was lost - during the war, lightning struck the oak tree and it was cut down, and a road for heavy military equipment passed through the artist’s grave.

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (1878 - 1935) is an artist famous in the genre of avant-garde, impressionism, futurism, and cubism.

Biography of Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich was born in Kyiv on February 11 (February 23), 1879. His parents were of Polish origin. His father, Severin, worked as a manager in Kyiv at the plant of the then famous sugar manufacturer Tereshchenko. But according to other data, the father of Kazimir Malevich was the Belarusian folklorist and ethnographer Severin Antonovich Malevich. However, if the identity of the artist’s father raises questions, it is known for certain that Kazimir’s mother, Ludwiga Alexandrovna, was an ordinary housewife.

Fourteen children were born into the family, but only nine lived to adulthood, and Casimir was the eldest among this noisy gang.

He started drawing with light hand to his mother, at the age of fifteen, after she gave her son a set of paints. When Malevich turned seventeen, he studied for some time at the Kievskaya art school N.I. Murashko.

The Malevichs decided to move the whole family to the city of Kursk in 1896. What prompted this decision to move is unknown, but what is known is that Kazimir worked there for some time as some minor official, languishing from routine melancholy.

This could not continue for long, so he finally abandoned his clerk career for painting.

His first paintings were painted under the influence French impressionists and themselves, of course, were also created in the style of impressionism. After some time, he became passionate about futurism. He was almost the most active participant in all futurist exhibitions, and even worked on costumes and scenery, in a word, he designed a futurist opera called “Victory over the Sun” in 1913. This performance, held in St. Petersburg, became one of the most important stages in the development of the entire Russian avant-garde.

It was the geometrization of forms and maximum simplification in design that prompted Kazimir Malevich to think about creating a new direction - Suprematism.

Malevich's work

The artist made a revolution, took a step that no one in the world could take before him. He completely abandoned figurativeness, even fragmented figurativeness, which had previously existed in futurism and cubism.

The artist showed his first forty-nine paintings to the world at an exhibition held in Petrograd in 1915 - “0.10”. Under his works, the artist placed a sign: “Suprematism of painting.” Among these paintings was the world-famous “Black Square”, painted in 1914 (?), which caused fierce attacks from critics. However, these attacks do not subside to this day.

The very next year, Kazimir Malevich published a brochure entitled “From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism,” in which he clearly substantiated his innovation.

Suprematism ultimately had such a huge influence not only on painting, but also on architectural art West and Russia, which brought its creator truly worldwide fame.

Suprematism Musical instrument Flower girl

Like all artists of a non-standard, “left” movement, Kazimir Malevich was very active during the revolution.

The artist designed the scenery for Vladimir Mayakovsky’s first play “Mystery Bouffe” in 1918; he was in charge of the Art Department at the Moscow Council. When he moved to Petrograd, he headed and taught at the Free Art Workshops.

In the fall of 1919, Casimir went to the city of Vitebsk to teach at the People's Art School, which was organized by Marc Chagall, and which soon transformed into the Art and Practical Institute. He left Vitebsk only in 1922 to return to Petrograd and work for porcelain factory, invent more and more new forms of paintings, and studied the possibilities of using Suprematism in architecture.

In 1932, Malevich achieved the position of head of the Experimental Laboratory at the Russian Museum, where he developed the theory of the “surplus element in painting”, which he had put forward earlier.

In the same year, 1932, Malevich suddenly turned again to traditional realism. Perhaps this was due to the trends of new times, but, one way or another, to finish this new period Kazimir Malevich was never able to achieve his creativity. In 1933, he became seriously ill, and two years later, in 1935, he died.

Almost 100 years have passed since Kazimir Malevich created the famous “Black Square”, and the hype around it has not subsided. To a consensus on exactly how famous painting was created, they still haven’t arrived. About the history of the origin of the masterpiece, on this moment, there are two versions: prosaic and mystical.

The prose version tells how Malevich was preparing for a very large exhibition. But circumstances were not in his favor and the artist either did not have time to finish the work, or simply ruined it. And in a panic, not knowing what to do, he grabbed dark paint and painted a black square on top of his work. As a result, the so-called “crackle” effect formed on the canvas - this is when the paint cracks. This is what happens as a result of applying paint to another one that has not dried. It is in this chaotic arrangement of a huge number of cracks that people find different images.

But the mystical version says that Kazimir worked on this work for more than one month. Through a philosophical understanding of the world, when a certain deep understanding and insight was achieved, the “Black Square” was created.

After the painting was finally completed, the creator could neither sleep nor eat. As the creator himself wrote, he was busy peering into the mysterious space of the black square. He claimed that he saw in this square what people once saw in the face of God.

Why is this picture known throughout the world? There are few people who don't know about it. Maybe the whole point is that no one had done this before Malevich? Maybe it's just innovation?

But! The thing is that Kazimir Malevich was not the first artist to paint a black square on canvas.

In Paris, in 1882, an exhibition was held called “The Art of the Inconsistents” and the works of six artists took part in the exhibition. The most extraordinary painting was recognized as the work called “Night Fight of Blacks in the Basement” by Paul Bilchod. Guess what was depicted on it? Many artists fail simply because they failed to present their work correctly.

Unlike the “Black Square”, Malevich’s “White Square” is less popular in Russia famous painting. However, it is no less mysterious and also causes a lot of controversy among experts in the field. pictorial art. The second title of this work by Kazimir Malevich is “White on White.” It was written in 1918 and belongs to a direction of painting that Malevich called Suprematism.

A little about Suprematism

It is advisable to start the story about Malevich’s painting “White Square” with a few words about Suprematism. This term comes from the Latin supremus, which means “highest.” This is one of the trends in avant-garde art, the emergence of which dates back to the beginning of the 20th century.

It is a type of abstract art and is expressed in the image various combinations multi-colored planes representing the simplest geometric outlines. This is a straight line, square, circle, rectangle. Using their combination, balanced asymmetrical compositions are formed, which are permeated with internal movement. They are called Suprematist.

At the first stage, the term “Suprematism” meant superiority, the dominance of color over other properties of painting. According to Malevich, paint in non-objective canvases was freed for the first time from its auxiliary role. Paintings painted in this style were the first step towards “ pure creativity", which equalizes the creative powers of man and nature.

Three paintings

It should be noted that the painting we are studying has another, third name - “White Square on a White Background”, Malevich painted it in 1918. Already after the other two squares were written - black and red. The author himself wrote about them in his book “Suprematism. 34 drawings." He said that the three squares are associated with the establishment of certain worldviews and world-building:

• black is a sign of economy;
• red represents the signal for revolution;
• white is seen as pure action.

According to the artist, the white square gave him the opportunity to explore “pure action.” Other squares indicate the path, the white one carries the white world. He affirms the sign of purity in creative life person.

From these words one can judge what Malevich’s white square means, according to the author himself. Next, the points of view of other specialists will be considered.

Two shades of white

Let's move on to the description of Kazimir Malevich's painting "White on White". When painting it, the artist used two shades of white, close to each other. The background has a slightly warm tint, with some ocher. The square itself is based on a cool bluish tint. The square is slightly inverted and is located closer to the upper right corner. This arrangement creates the illusion of movement.

In fact, the quadrangle depicted in the picture is not a square - it is a rectangle. There is evidence that at the beginning of the work the author, having drawn a square, lost sight of it. And after that, after taking a closer look, I decided to outline its borders, as well as highlight the main background. For this purpose, he drew the outlines with a grayish color, and also highlighted the background part with a different shade.

Suprematist icon

According to researchers, when Malevich worked on the painting, which was later recognized as a masterpiece, he was haunted by a feeling of “metaphysical emptiness.” This is precisely what he tried to express with great force in “White Square”. And the color, local, faded, not at all festive, only emphasizes the eerie mystical state of the author.

This work seems to follow and is a derivative of “Black Square”. And the first, no less than the second, lays claim to the “title” of an icon of Suprematism. Malevich’s “White Square” shows clear and even lines outlining a rectangle, which, according to some researchers, are a symbol of fear and the meaninglessness of existence.

The artist poured all his spiritual experiences onto the canvas in the form of some kind of geometric abstract art, which actually carries a deep meaning.

Interpretation of whiteness

In Russian poetry, the interpretation of the color white comes close to the Buddhist vision. For them, it means emptiness, nirvana, the incomprehensibility of existence. Painting of the 20th century, like no other, mythologizes white people.

As for the Suprematists, they saw in it primarily a symbol of multidimensional space, different from Euclidean. It plunges the observer into a meditative trance, which purifies the human soul, similar to Buddhist practice.

Kazimir Malevich himself spoke about this as follows. He wrote that the Suprematism movement it's already underway towards the pointless white nature, towards white purity, towards white consciousness, towards white excitement. And this, in his opinion, is the highest level of the contemplative state, be it movement or rest.

Escape from life's difficulties

Malevich's "White Square" was the pinnacle and end of his Suprematist painting. He himself was delighted with it. The master said that he managed to break through the azure barrier dictated by color restrictions and emerge into whiteness. He called on his comrades, calling them navigators, to sail after him towards the abyss, since he erected beacons of Suprematism, and infinity - a free white abyss - lies before them.

However, according to researchers, behind the poetic beauty of these phrases their tragic essence is visible. The white abyss is a metaphor for non-existence, that is, death. It is suggested that the artist cannot find the strength to overcome the difficulties of life and therefore retreats from them into white silence. Malevich completed two of his last exhibitions with white canvases. Thus, he seemed to confirm that he preferred going to nirvana to real reality.

Where was the painting exhibited?

As mentioned above, “White Square” was written in 1918. It was shown for the first time in the spring of 1919 in Moscow at the exhibition “Objectless Creativity and Suprematism.” In 1927, the film was shown in Berlin, after which it remained in the West.

It became the pinnacle of non-objectivity that Malevich strove for. After all, nothing can be more pointless and plotless than a white quadrangle against the same background. The artist admitted that White color attracts him with its freedom and limitlessness. Malevich’s “White Square” is often considered the first example of monochrome painting.

This is one of the few paintings by the artist that is in US collections and is available to the general American public. Perhaps it is for this reason that this picture is superior to his others famous works, not excluding “Black Square”. Here it is considered as the pinnacle of the entire Suprematist movement in painting.

Encrypted meaning or nonsense?

Some researchers believe that all kinds of interpretations about the philosophical and psychological meaning of Kazimir Malevich’s paintings, including his squares, are far-fetched. But in fact there is none high meaning they don't have it. An example of such opinions is the story of Malevich’s “Black Square” and the white stripes on it.

On December 19, 1915, a futuristic exhibition was being prepared in St. Petersburg, for which Malevich promised to paint several paintings. He had little time left; he either did not have time to finish the canvas for the exhibition, or was dissatisfied with the result that he rashly covered it with black paint. This is how the black square turned out.

At this time, a friend of the artist appeared in the studio and, looking at the canvas, exclaimed: “Brilliant!” And then Malevich came up with the idea of ​​a trick that could be a way out of the current situation. He decided to give the resulting black square some mysterious meaning.

This may also explain the effect of cracked paint on the canvas. That is, no mysticism, just covered in black paint failed picture. It should be noted that numerous attempts have been made to examine the canvas in order to discover the original version of the image. But they were not successful. Today they have been stopped so as not to damage the masterpiece.

Upon closer inspection, hints of other tones, colors and patterns, as well as white stripes, can be seen through the craquelure. But this is not necessarily the painting located under the top layer. This may well be the bottom layer of the square itself, which was formed during the process of writing it.

It should be noted that there are very many similar versions regarding the artificial excitement around all Malevich squares. a large number of. But what really? Most likely, the secret of this artist will never be revealed.