What was it about? What were the goals?
Not to be
confused with Supremacism (meaning racism, basically), this was an art movement
founded by Kasimir Malevich in 1913, focusing on simple geometric shapes,
arranged in compositions of varying complexity and limited colours, emphasizing
dynamic placement of shapes. The goal was to ignore the real world and
everything in it, and break everything we see and know into simple, pure
abstract shapes, and see what kind of feelings and qualities they emote.
Malevich wrote,
“Under Suprematism I understand
the primacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist, the visual
phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the
significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in
which it is called forth.”
It was a
kind of experimentation, and Malevich even went so far as to say there was a
spiritual aspect to his work.
A bit of historical context:
Malevich
began painting around 1900, experimenting in a number of different art styles:
Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and then Futurism. In 1913, he
began to form his new style while designing the sets and costumes for
Kruchenykh’s Futurist opera, Victory Over
the Sun. This led him to a series of works he displayed in 1915 at the Last
Futurist Exhibition of Paintings ,10 in Petrograd. With a slightly distorted
black square hanging in the corner of the room, like a Russian icon, he
launched the movement.
The Sick Man,
by Vasili Maximov, 1882 (not a Suprematist)
This artwork shows a typical Russian
iconic corner. People would pray to these for help.
Last Futurist Exhibition of
Paintings ,10 in Petrograd, 1915.
Malevich wrote a great deal to explain his
ideas. When he first exhibited his 1915 show, he wrote “From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism.” It was a big
success, and Malevich formed a group of like-minded artists. They started a
journal, and Malevich then got a job teaching art in Moscow.
In
1928, Stalin decided he didn’t like abstract art. He confiscated Malevich’s
paintings, and forbade him to continue his Suprematism. Part of this had to do
with Malevich’s anti-political views, writing:
“Art no longer cares to serve the state and religion,
it no longer wishes to illustrate the history of manners, it wants to have
nothing further to do with the object, as such, and believes that it can exist,
in and for itself, without ‘things’. . . ”
Malevich
kept painting, trying to reinvent representational art in his portraits of
everyday peasants and workers. However, he still wrote in protest, The Non-Objective
World: The Manifesto of Suprematism, so
that his works would be understood. In 1930 he visited Poland and Germany,
where the Soviet Union suspected he was spreading his artistic ideas, so they
put him in prison for two months.
Malevich continued to paint realistically for five
more years until he died of cancer (he signed all his works with a small black
square). At his funeral in 1935, his casket, tombstone, and the car that drove him
there were all decorated with a black square.
How was it represented in the other arts –
music, architecture, and literature?
Although
less famous, Malevich began to draw 3D views of his compositions, taking them
in a more architectural direction, and then began building plaster models of
his works. Although they weren’t buildings, per se, they were suggestive of
buildings, and were a huge inspiration for Zaha Hadid, who was one of the
leading, international architects of our time.
Architecton, 1923-8, Malevich
Besides this, Lazar Khidekel managed to become a successful Suprematist
architect in Russia, surviving Stalin, and building the Club for Red Sport Int.
Stadium and a cafe for the Paris World Fair of 1937.
Was it great?
No. Not in
comparison to the greatest artists of other movements. But, that doesn’t mean
it wasn’t successful, attractive, or inspiring. It was all these things, at
least to some extent. Suprematism is basically the culmination of one artist
trying his hand at many different styles of art, and in the end deciding to
start over from scratch – to reinvent art, one shape at a time. It’s easy to
look at his simplest works, and think, “This emperor has no clothes.” But, you
shouldn’t look at these as individual artworks. Back in 1915, they were all
hung together in such a strange, haphazard way that they formed one large art
installation. Think of them as a sequence, like an animation.
Ok, so maybe it’s still not that impressive, but the big simple squares
shouldn’t be thought of as artworks so much as building blocks, almost like
one-celled organisms, from which Malevich’s other artworks evolved. And in
these works, he showed a good sense for design as he created compositions that
were asymmetrical yet balanced, playful, and dynamic. Some are better than
others – that’s how experiments work.
You might be surprised to learn that many artists do this same thing as
an exercise to improve their compositions. Here’s an example of illustrator
William O’Connor drawing thumbnail sketches in the style of Franz Kline (not a Suprematist), to
find the best composition for his work:
Were Malevich’s works really spiritual? Evocative? Are the feelings you
get from his work any more “pure” than when you see a Rembrandt, Klimt, or
Michelangelo? I would say no, that was just his arrogance getting the best of
him. But, I still see value in his art. Malevich was on to something, and it’s
a tragedy that Stalin prevented him from continuing his work, right when it was
developing into something close to great. In the end, Malevich’s black square
became impressive, not as art, but as a sign of protest against Stalin’s
tyranny.
Wait a minute. Didn’t Kandinsky do all this
before Malevich?
Nope. It’s
true that Kandinsky was older, and went into pure abstraction around 1911, and
both he and Malevich were showing abstract art in the Der Blaue Reiter group. But
Kandinsky’s improvisations were more globular, brightly coloured, Fauvist, and
messy. He didn’t mimic Malevich’s geometric work till the 1920’s. Both artists
used abstraction to explore ideas of spirituality and inner feelings, so they
had a lot in common, but both were distinct.
Wait another minute, did Malevich just do this
because he couldn’t draw or paint realistically?
No, he was
a decent painter both before and after Suprematism – not the best, but decent,
for the times:
Self-Portrait, 1908-9
Self-Portrait, 1933
Some
leading figures:
Wassily
Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Kasimir
Malevich (1879-1935)
Aleksandra Ekster (1882-1949)
Lyubov Popova (1889-1924)
El Lissitzky
(1890-1941)
Sergei Senkin (1894–1963)
Ilya Chashnik (1902-1929)
Lazar Khidekel (1904-1986)
A look at how Malevich's ideas evolved:
Black Square
Black Circle
Four Squares
Painterly Realism - Boy with a Knapsack
Black Rectangle, Blue Triangle
Rectangle and Circle
Eight Red Rectangles
Airplane Flying
Suprematist Composition
Supremus No. 50
Suprematist Composition
Suprematist Composition
Suprematist Composition
Supremus No. 58
