ALEXANDRA SOKOLOVA

10.12.14

BA (HONS) DIMI, CTS, YEAR ONE, TERM ONE

TUTOR: MICHAEL WAMPOSZYC; ANTONY TODD

SUPREMATIST COMPOSITION: WHITE ON WHITE (1918) BY KAZIMIR MALEVICH.

WORD COUNT: 1470

The Futurists in Italy and Suprematists and Constructivists in Russia were each in their

different ways anticipating forms of social and political change which they contributed their

work. This account of modernism encourages us to think of the modern art of the early

twentieth century as the artistic expression of modernity, a form of response to social

conditions and historical events of the time.

Kazimir Malevich was undoubtably one of the most influential modernist artists and the first

one to engage fully in geometric abstraction. He marked the start of suprematism, the

Russian avant-garde movement, through his own unique philosophy of perception and

painting. Malevich focused his attention on the essence of painting, his ideas about forms and

meaning in art were fundamental in formation of non-objective, or abstract art. Malevich was

not only a painter, but also a prolific writer; through both his art and his writing, Malevich

paved the way for many generations of later abstract artists to stop relying on the real world.

Because of his contacts in the West, Malevich was able to transmit his ideas about painting to

his fellow artists in Europe and the United States, evidentially influencing the evolution of

modern art.

Around 1913, a period when Malevich referred to himself as Cubo-Futurist, the artist worked

on collaborative theatre and opera projects, where he met the composer and painter Matiushin

and the poet-theoretician Kruchenykh, who were exploring the connection between sound

and meaning. Malevich conducted similar experiments in painting, resulting in the invention

of Suprematism. It was an art consisting of basic geometric form that focused on spiritual

purity, often painted in monochrome.  The movement rejected all the conventional definitions

of art, in favour of an artistic exploration of a spiritual reality, Suprematism was meant to be

universally comprehensible regardless of cultural or ethnic origin. As Stephen Little explains:

’Suprematist paintings had no narrative or social comment, nor did they respect any

traditional genres of painting. Malevich thought of suprematism as the ‘New

Realism’’(Little,S.(2012) page 23). The movement was highly influential among the Russian

avant-garde.

Artistic methods used by Russian artists in the time coming up to the October Revolution*

were part of the new world of relying on machines, a world with engrained spiritual tension.

Most artists of the time looked to the October Revolution of 1917 with hope. When it came, it

gave new meaning to their work. Malevich hoped to use the revolution as a start of a new

society, in which materialism would eventually lead to spiritual freedom. For Malevich, there

was no difference between future and past—there were ruins in every direction. The first

suprematist exhibition “0.10”(zero-ten) took place in Moscow in December 1915. Black

Square(see appendix 1) - a large black square painted against a white background, was hung

in the corner of the exhibition, mimicking a display of a religious icon. In his Manifesto,

Malevich considers Suprematism as ‘the supremacy 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’. The Times refer to Malevich’s Black Square as “Mona Lisa of modernism”.

Malevich’s ‘White on White’ series can be considered iconic examples of suprematism along

side the Black Square. Within these paintings, Malevich reduces the pictorial means to a bare

minimum –– he disregards the illusion of depth and volume, while stripping his paintings of

the seemingly last essential attribute, colour. The remaining geometric figure, barely

differentiated from a slightly warmer white background, has a illusion of movement,

achieved by its off-centered position. ‘Suprematist Composition: White On White(1918)’ (see

appendix 2) is considered one of the most radical paintings of its day, arguably it was a

statement about art itself, but it is not impersonal –– the texture of the paint and the subtle

variations of the white gives away the hand of the artist. The monochrome asymmetrical

square with imprecise outlines creates a feeling of infinite space; the slight tilt of the square

suggests movement. The painting combines both basic geometric form and monochrome

colours, which are the main characteristics of Suprematism.

One could argue that Malevich’s paintings such as White On White were revolutionary, but

they were not an active revolutionary gesture in the sense of criticising the dominant political

system of the time or advertised the coming revolution, they were revolutionary in a much

deeper sense. A revolution is the destruction of the existing society. But it is this destruction

that is hard to come to terms with, we tend to be compassionate and nostalgic towards our

past. Malevich’s Suprematism was the medicine against any kind of nostalgia. It accepted the

total destruction of all traditions of the Russian and European culture—traditions that were

familiar not only to the educated classes but also to the general population. In his book on

Malevich, Gerry Souter states: ‘Suprematism was revolutionary to a degree that it became

counter-revolutionary the longer it persisted.’ He explains ‘Beneath the relentless ideology of

Lenin and Stalin’s iron fists there was only room for one revolution at a time. As the Western

art establishment looked on, one by one the Suprematists winked out’(Souter,G(2008)p.1). As

previously mentioned, Malevich supported the October Revolution of 1917. He painted

posters and contributed articles about new art to the “Anarkkhia” (“Anarchy”) newspaper.

According to Matthew Drutt, the revolutionary artist was arrested twice, in 1930 on the

charges of espionage that were linked by the investigation to his trips abroad, stating that the

case arose on the basis of a report that Malevich, during his official trip to Poland in 1927,
met with a group of artists hostile to the USSR.

According to Drutt: ‘The critic Ernst Kallai … acknowledged his singular accomplishment:

“It is quite difficult to imagine what further development in painting is possible beyond what

has been achieved.”’ he adds ‘while over a decade later, a Constructivist critic sarcastically

denounced one of his more recent pictures as follows: "The only good canvas in the entire

Unovis exhibition is an absolutely pure, white canvas with a very good prime coating.

Something could be done on it." ‘ (Drutt,M; Rakitin,V.(2003) p. 18). Malevich’s art outlived

these claims and the government repression, as well as Malevich’s own phase of self doubt,

which turned his paintings away from abstraction and to a kind of Italianate realism, only

roughly connected to his previous concerns.

Kazimir Malevich was the most radical representative of the pre-revolutionary phase of the

Russian avant-garde. Suprematist art was was non-mimetic and non-critical while supporting

the cultural and political revolution. His paintings announced the death of any cultural

nostalgia, of any sentimental attachment to the culture of the past. Even though Suprematism

only lasted about 7 years as an art movement, it left its definitive mark in the history of

modernism and had influenced the formation of abstract art. In 1930s, the establishment of

Social Realism as the official style of Soviet art visually silenced the Russian avant-garde.

This not only gave rise to the legend that Malevich has been prosecuted, but it also caused his

representational work go almost unnoticed in the West until recently.

*The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917,
which destroyed theTsarist authority and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar
was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February
1917 (March in the Georgian callendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the
time). In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed
and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
Appendix 1

‘Black Square’ by Kasimir Malevich, 1915 (80 cm x 80 cm)

Currently at Tretyakov Gallery
Appendix 2

‘Suprematist Composition: White On White ‘ by Kasimir

Malevich , 1918 (79.4 cm × 79.4 cm). MOMA, New York
 COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY:

▪ Borchartd-Hume,A.(2014) Malevich. London: Tate publishing.

▪ Groys.B.(2013) Becoming Revolutionary: On Kazimir Malevich. e-flux (http://

www.e-flux.com/journal/becoming-revolutionary-on-kazimir-malevich/) (accessed
november 2014)

▪ Drutt,M; Rakitin,V.(2003)Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism. US: Guggenheim

Museum Publications.

▪ Fern,J.M.(1996)The great modern masters: Malevich. New York: Cameo/Abrams.

▪ Harrison,H.(2001)Movements in Modern Art: Modernism. London: Tate Gallery

Publishing.

▪ Little,S.(2012) Isms: Understanding Modern Art. London: A & C Black Publishers

Ltd.

▪ Muller,K.B.(2003) Kasimir Malevich - and introduction. Deutsche Bank ArtMag

(http://www.db-artmag.com/archiv/06/e/thema-malewitsch.html) (Accessed
November 214)

▪ Souter,G.(2008)Malevich. New York, USA: Parkstone Press International.

▪ The Art Story Foundation (2014) Suprematism TheArtStory.org (http://

www.theartstory.org/movement-suprematism.htm) (accessed november 2014)

▪ The Museum Of Modern Art (2014) Suprematist Composition: White on White

MOMA (http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80385) (accessed
december 2014)

▪ Wikipedia (2014) Russian Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Russian_Revolution) (accessed December 1014)