UMK-Art & Culture: Suprematism - Russia's Artistic Revolution

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:

Echoes, by William O'Connor

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: