Russian History and Culture Editors-in-Chief [efirey P. Brooks (The Johns Hopkins University) Christina Lodder (University of Kent) VOLUME 22 ‘The titles published in this series are listed at brillcom/rhe Celebrating Suprematism Approaches to the Art of Kazimir Malevich Edited by Christina Lodder BRILL 26/8 LEIDEN | BOSTONCHAPTERS Malevich, the Fourth Dimension, and the Ether of Space One Hundred Years Later Linda Dalrymple Henderson ‘The importance of the concept of a fourth dimension of space for Kazimir ‘Malevich and his colleagues, the musician/painter Mikhail Matiushin and the Demianovich Uspenskii), Organum of 191, of the Englishman ‘The Fourth Dimension, 1904)? Yet, the idea of a possible fourth dimension of space, which might hold a reality truer than that of visual perception, did jes Howard Hinton (A New Bra of Thought, 888; and ‘by Claude Bragdon and Knopf gaa). See azo "The Fourth Dimension, in P.D. Ouspenshy, A New Model ofthe Unbverse: Principles ofthe Peycho from thy esis of internat nected many m |CH,, THE FOURTH DIMENSION, AND THE ETHER OF SPACE, 45 1 The display of Kesimir Malevich's Suprematst canvases at The Last Futurist Exht- ‘bin of Paintings, 010 (Zero-Ten), December 135 — January 6, etograd. 1880s onwards it was also often associated with the scientific hypoth- space-filling ‘ether. Both of these concepts figured prominently in the jonal cultures of science and occultism, which were often intercon- n this period and which served as the backdrop for the innovations of jodern artists* thon elton ro Seg and At Mero Cn 2: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner& Co, 931). fonts books inaugurated what Ihave termed hyperspace philosophy’; see Henderson,46 DALRYMPLE HENDERSON ‘The fourth dimension and the ether stood as signs of the invisible ‘meta- realities’ that were a vital part of the layperson’s world view for much of the first two decades of the twentieth century. At the same time that the psy- chophysiologist Wilhelm Wunét, so important for the Russian Avant-Garde and for Ouspensky, was studying the processes of sensation and perception, discoveries and developments in physies in the 1890s, such as X-rays, the elec- ‘ron, radioactivity, and wireless telegraphyy, were making itevident that‘nature’ included much more than what the human eye can detect This scientific mi- lieu, to which the ether was central and which formed the larger context of interest in a supra-sensible fourth spatial dimension, has long been missing from histories of modem art and modernism more generally. Part of the problem in recovering this historical moment is the fact that Albert Binstein and Relativity Theory, which gained widespread public atten- tion only in late 1919, subsequently overshadowed our knowledge ofthe ether physics that reigned in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century Al- ‘though Binstein did not declare that there was no ether, he did assert that hhad no mechanical properties and was, therefore, irelevant to his new physi Likewise, General Relativity incorporating Hermann Minkowski’ 1908 posi ing of a four-dimensional space-time continuum, redefined the fourth dimen- sion as time, the view that would dominate discussions of the fourth dimen- sion from the 1920s onward, Only the late twentieth-century emergence of ‘imagination ofthe Fouth Dimension in Twentleth-Century Artand Culture} Configurations, ithe occult context ofthe ether and its relevance for Frantisek the Ether of Space in Bruce Clarke and Linda Dalrymple He formation: Representation in Selence and Technology, Ar, and Literature (Stanford, ord University Poss, (Winter 2004): 445-6. Foran exc ‘Alex Keller, Te Infiney of Atomie Physics: Hercule n His Cradle (Onfor Clarendon Press, 1983). ‘On Relativity Theory and the eclipse expedition, see Helge Kragh, Quantum Generations: A istry of Physics in the Twentieth Century (Prncaton, Nf Princeton University Press 1998); ‘and Thomas F. Glick, ed, The Comparative Reception of Relatbty (Dordrecht: D. Reel Pub- introduction to physics in this period, se ishing Co. 1967) On the delayed reception of Relativity Theory, see Henderson, Bator Introduction: Wiking Modern Art and Selence—An Overview, Slence in Context, 425-45. MALEVICH, 7! string theory along with c /E FOURTH DIMENSION, AND THE ETHER OF SPACE a 1d new cosmologies involving higher dimensions of space— sputer graphics—would bring the fourth dimension back to ‘widespread popular attention.® Im her 1991 Douglas argu ssay Malevich and Westen European Art Theory; Charlotte for the importance of the transnational circulation of artis- tic ideas in Europe and Russia and noted ‘changes in the way the world was viewed due to|the popularization of new scientific concepts and the new technol ‘tempt to see of gy; including flight As she states, Abstract styles were the at- leeply into the structure of the worl, to bring together former dichotomies—matter and spirit, material and energy’ The essay that follows owes its inspi Garde and th tion to Douglas's pioneering exploration of the Russian Avant- stimulus that it derived from the science of figures such as ‘Wundt and Ernst Mach.# My goal here, however, isto enlarge that background by incorporating the popular scientific milieu of ether physics and related sc- entific dis Russian Avant Bad In January 19 figures who space: ‘Lobacl Matiushin e in new kinds Euclidean’ gep ‘hard Riemany ries as the setting for the interest of both Ouspensky and the Garde in the fourth dimension. yund: The Fourth Dimension and the Ether , Matiushin, in an article on the oo exhibition, named the been crucial sources for the Avant-Garde on the issue of , Riemann, Poincaré, Bouché, Hinton, and Minkowski}? jhasised the mathematical sources that had stimulated interest ces: the pioneers and advocates of the curvilinear ‘non- rmetries, Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Georg Friedrich Bern- and Henri Poincaré. He concluded with a reference to the very :80n,‘Relntroduction, in Fourth Dimension (209) 65-9 ouglas Malevich and Western European Art Theory, n Malevich: Arist and48 DALRYMPLE HENDERSON latest science, that of Hermann Minkowski, to which he may have been ex- posed in the popular writings by the physicist Nikolai Alekseevich Umovi ‘Matiushin neglected to mention publicly Ouspensky, who was a key source on the fourth dimension for himself, Kruchenykh, and Malevich, but he did name Hinton, whom they had discovered through Ouspensky, and whose books Ous- pensky translated and published in 1gi5- Matiushin’s omission may be due, in part to the fact that Ouspensky had criticised the Avant-Garde in the second ‘edition of his Fourth Dimension in1gi4.! ‘The previously unidentified presence in this list is that of ‘Bouché— ‘Maurice Boucher, whose 1903 'hyperespace: Le Temps, la matire, et énergie was translated into Russi as Chetvertoe izmerenie.!* Boucher, like Poincaré, embraced ether physics, and his book, with its extensive discus- sion of both the fourth dimension and the ether, had been important for artists, in Pars, including Marcel Duchamp. Boucher's text highlights the contempo- rary recognition of the limitations of the human eye in the wake of discoveries such as the X-ray, emphasising that ‘Our senses, on the whole, give deformed images of real phenomena, a central theme in Ouspensky' {ng as well Recounting recent developments in science in his discus ‘matter, energy and ether, Boucher connected these topies to the fourth dimen- sion, drawing on Hinton, as Ouspensky would do extensively as well. Philo- sophically committed to infinity and continuity, to which he devoted an entire ipter, Boucher drew on a spatial fourth dimension to explain the penetra- ‘matter as well as the relation of the ether to the three-dimensional including gravitation.* Five years before Minkowski, Boucher actu- ly posited an ‘Espace-Temps a 4 dimensions. In contrast to Relativity The- ory’s highly mathematical, finite ‘space-time continuum, however, Boucher’s 13 Onthe non-Ruclidean geometries and these figures expecially Poincaré, see Henderson, Fourth Dimension, chap. 3, and the section of chap. 5 on non-Eueidean geometry and 3 eur Phyperespace:Le Temps, la matire, energie (Pais Blix t Chetvertoe tmerene (St.Petersburg [zd BS. Bychkowskago, 14 See LD. Henderson, Duchamp in Context Science and Tecnology inthe Large Glass and elated Works (Princeton, Nf: Pncaton University Press, 998) 167-68 25 Boucher, Esai 64. 26 Ibid chap. 2 (ining ete contin’). On the ether and gravitation, se ibid, 196-61 MALEVICH, HE FOURTH DIMENSION, AND THE BTHER OF SPACE 43 filled with ether and was infinite in its extent.” Inga, the mn of Boucher’s book gave the Avant-Garde a strong infusion «directly to the spatial fourth dimension. edition of Tertivm Organum, Ouspensky added a new chap- gu lecture by Umov before the Mendeleevskian Convention n and the new Relativity physics (with no mention of Binstein's ‘name). Yet that publication appeared after the emergence of Suprematism 28 Indeed, in contrast to the oft-repeated narra- fe triumph of Einstein, his theories continued to ultimately eumphed, there was no clear sense forthe publ be: stores (and especially his denial ofthe ether) was comect. For ads cussion pf the science that attracted the Ruslan public during this perio, ee blow. 20 See Milena Wazeck, instins Opponents The Public Controversy about the Pheory of ela tity hero, trans. Geof Koby (Cambridge: Cambrge University Pres 2004).so DALRYMPLE HENDERSON “The response of Claude Bragdon, Ouspensky’s American counterpart as an ad- vocate of the fourth dimension and later the translator of Tertium Organum, ‘was typical. Having heard something of the new Relativity Theory, he com- plained of the ‘Relativists’ in his 1916 book Four-Dimensional Vistas: ‘If they take away the ether, they must give something in its stead" ‘Because the ether was largely forgotten in the wake of Einstein's ascent dur- ing the 1gaos, itis useful to clarify the meaning of this long-forgotten concept in the later nineteenth century. Although a 1uminiferous ether’ had first come «tention in the context of the wave theory of light in the 18208, variety of additional functions had been attributed to it by .o that the ether could seem very nev. Writing in 1883 in Nature, the prominent British physicist Sir Oliver Lodge explained, ‘One continuous substance filling all space: which can vibrate as light; which can be sheared into positive and negative electricity; which in whirls constitutes matter, and which transmits by continuity, and not by impact, every action and reaction cof which matter is capable. This isthe modern view of the ether and its func- Lodge was 50 great that his 1889 book Modern Views of Electricity (based on his articles in Nature), appeared in Russian even before it was published in English, and his writings continued to be translated, including his important The Bther of Space of 19092 ‘While Lord Kelvin's earlier ‘vortex theory of matter’ had posited matter as formed from swirling vortices of ether (like smoke rings), after the identifi- cation of the electron in 1897, Lodge had proposed what he called ‘the elec- tric theory of matter’ based on the interaction of electrons and the ether* Both Wassily Kandinsky and Umberto Boccioni referred to the theory in their 2 Gude Brogdon, Four Dimensional Vistas (Rochester, NY The Manas Pres 2 ‘Nature, 27 (x February 1889330. On the Hodge, eds, Conceptlons of Ether: Studien in the History of thar heaves smbridge: Cambridge Univesity Pres, 198), eapedaly Daniel Siegel, Thomson, Maxwell, andthe Universl Ether in Victorian 29m). Lodge's history of astronomy, nazi (St, Petersburg .Pavlenkova, Souls), Teosofichestoe ‘Modern Views of Blectricty, se0 Theodore Besterman, A Bibliography of Sir Olver lodge (Londons Oxford Univesity Press, 1935), 29-24. 24 See Sir Oliver Lodge, ‘leczic Theory of Mater, Harper’ Monthly Magazine, 19 (August 1909) 385-89; and Kelle, Infamy of Atomic Physics, chap. 8. MALEVIGH, THE FOURTH DIMENSION, AND THE BTHER OF SPACE st writings, tave Le B his bestse in gi02° heat, radii existence than that, source for esting, in Boccioni’s words, that ‘matter is only energy’? Gus- in was a key populariser of these new ideas and of the ether, and ing L’Bvolution de la matiére (1905) appeared in Russian translation ere he asserted, ‘The greater part of physical phenomena ~ light, itelectrcity, ete. are considered to have their seat in the ether... its as forced itself upon us long since, and appears to be more assured if matter itself” A friend of the philosopher Henri Bergson and a ‘the Cubists in Paris, Le Bon viewed matter as merely a temporary condensation of ‘intra-atomic energy'?® Le Bon ements research, ular topic: prising im gamma ra) ‘The ident trons hel radioact was often! ‘being for }was responding, in part, to the discovery of the first radioactive el- Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898 and their subsequent high-profile long with that of Emest Rutherford, Radioactivity was a highly pop- in both popular scientific and occult writing, since it offered the sur ze of matter as continuelly emitting alpha and beta particles and ‘as well as the prospect of an unlimited new source of energy.2* ication of radioactive beta particles as infinitesimal, speeding elec- ed keep research on the structure of the atom in the news. Since ity was widely interpreted as a universal property, matter in general ‘discussed as demateralising into the ether and, at the same time, ed from it, creating an identity for the ether as a liminal realm of diffusion 4nd cohesion. ‘How much we ourselves are matter and how much ‘these days, a very moot question; pondered popular science writer .edy Duncan in 1905: Not only matter, but space itself had a new ether is, id Robert Ke ‘Bergsonts writings were wellknown in Rusia, See Chalote Douglas, ‘Suprema- Russian Reve, 34 (uly 1975) 966-8. On Matin om and Bergson, see note 49 below. Keller, fancy of Atomic Pics, chaps 56 Kennedy Duncan The New Knowledge (Nev Yor: A.S. Barnes 1905552 DALRYMPLE HENDERSON {mage in this period: it was now understood as filled with ether and vibrating ‘waves, offering new possibilities for communications, As Sir William Crookes declared in his 1898 Presidential Address to the British Association for the Ad~ ‘vancement of Science, ‘Bther vibrations have powers and attributes equal to any demand — even to the transmission of thought!" ‘The Russian Avant-Garde, the New Science, and Further Stimuli, Including Italian Futurism ‘Our energy isthe energy of Radium .. Our principle =the dazzling renewal of ian Futurist poet Vasiii Kamenskit in considered Rayism to be an extension of Impressionist painting (inflected by Cubism, Futurism, and Orphism), in which rays of light themselves were his fatter, As Douglas has written so suggestively, ‘Larionov conceived rocess almost as putting the canvas into the air to skim off the light it trembled in space like a mirage. What the painter understood ferred to ‘Radioactive Rays. Ultraviolet rays. Reflectivity, and his library con- tained sources on subjects such as X-rays and other related aspects of the new ‘Gr Address by Sir Willi Crookes, President, Report ofthe Sixty-Highth Meeting of the Brlsh Association forthe Advancement of Sclenee (898) (London: John Murray, 2895), a ‘32 Vasil Aamensa, untitled ms, quoted in Anthony Parton, Mithai Larionov and he Rus- ‘however, ed Parton to wonder how t'Yound its way into the “ ‘Russian Art and Tallan Futurism, Art Journal, 94 (Spring ‘and Crtcsm (rex. ed, London: Thames and Hudson, 1988) 20. which the whi alities, and his writings and art reflect the new conceptions of iffhe trumpeted those concerns less overtly than Larfon alism, Malev artistic cultur in nature. TH ery in the Nikolai Khardzhiev Collection of the 1g16 drawing Composition ist .MALRVIGH, THE FOURTH DIMENSION, AND THE ETHER OF SPACE sa jough Larionov did not use the term ether, in his 1914 essay ‘Le Rayonisme Pictural, he mentioned ‘plastic emanations’ and ‘intangible forms, that ‘Rayism is the painting .. of these infinite products with Se of space isfilled:2” yas likewise profoundly interested in energies and In his Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Painterly Re- th declared, ‘Objects have vanished like smoke; to attain the new , art advances toward creation as an end in itself and toward Wwer the forms of nature'S* Suprematism focused not on super- 1 surfaces, but on ‘inherent forms’: Solid matter does ere is only energy, the painter declared in 19215" The Sensation of Electrie{ity)) (Fig. 36) makes Malevich's scientific 40 Here, he seems to have used his newly developed Suprematist lrionow ‘Rayon (Rayist]Palnting, ln Bowlt, Russian Art ofthe Avant-Garde, be note 33 above. ye Rayonisme Pictur, in Bowit, Russian Art ofthe Avant-Garde, 10. Lationoy sto the fourth dimension in his ext Rayist Painting! Se Henderson, Fourth chap. 5; and Parton, Mihal Larionoy, 239-37. evich, Ot fume i furizma k Suprematizm Now shiwplnyt realize Obehchestvennala pola, 196); English translation From Cubism to Futurism ism: The New Painterly Realism, in Bowit, Ruslan Art ofthe Avant Garde, fon, having no relation whatsoever ‘See Kasmir Maleitech, Die ggenstandiose Welt (Munich: Verlag Albert Lan- English translation, Kacimlr Malevich, The Non-Objectve World (Chicago: Paul and Co 1950), 20. 5; English translation, ‘Futurism Kaci Malevich, 878-395 (Wash- inherent forms, see Kezimir Male- mga: An Extract trans Jl fubiama ksuprematizma. Novy shivopisny realzm (Petrograd: L. la Ginzburg, ye New Reali in Painting’ in ich and Wester Buropean Art ]wwuctateorgukleontext-commentJrtcles \-canvas). Troels Andersen recoris the inscription as ‘ouyaexue sxexxpit- be translates as Sensation of le oels Andersen, KS. Malevich: okay Archive (Aarhus: Aarhus University Pres, aon), 34. The transliteration