Kasimir Malevich Is considered as largest avant-garde artist in Russia. He is a founder of suprematism - direction in the abstract art. Despite the fame he is still one of the most enigmatic and unexplored artist. Malevich is a great figure in the Russian art as well as in European art movement of the early 20th century, he is the most important pioneer of geometric abstract art. Lots of people compare his paintings to those of Wassily Kandisky, but they have great originality in their own right. In this article I wanted to tell about his life, his masterpiece and his influence.
Kasmir Malevich was born on 23 of February in 1878 in Kiev. His family immigrated from Polland, he was the oldest from six children. He received only a rudimentary formal school, but through his own energies he was well read. After moving to Kursk, he served as a draftsmen in the technical management company. In 1905 he moved to Moscow and attended the Moscow School of Painting, five years later he had his first one - man show. At the Stroganov Art School he studied sculpture and Architecture. From 1905 to 1910 he attended classes in private studio of Rerberg. While under his tutorship Malevich produced symbolist, impresianist and art nouveu painting and drawings. He spent summer in Kursk developing neoimpressionism. In 1907 he took part in the early exhibition of Moscow artist society with such artist as Alexander Schevchenko , Natalia Gondcharova and David Burliuk.
With the influence of French art and of the Russian avant-garde, Malevich style developed into Cubo-Futurism("The KnIfe Gringer" 1912) (Milner, J, 1966). His new outlook first appeared at the "Donkey's Tail" exhibition in 1912 to promote Neo-Primitivist styles. His paintings of peasants and urban scenes were brightly colored and expressive ("On the Boulevard" 1911). In 1913 Malevich meets a group of artist and poets interested in a more philosophical approach to art. Self-sufficient world of Krucherykh and Khlebnikov influenced Malevich incredibly. The notion of "zaum" was promoted, a state where experience occurs beyond the naturally perceived world. Work for the Cuba-Futurist opera Victory Over the Sun moved Malevich into suprematism. For example the '0,10' exhibition on works Black Square and Black Cross. Supermatizm became from abstract paintings to geometrical paintings. In this style Malevich worked for about 5 years. During his suprematism period he produced a huge deal of work and 1919 he decided that his work in this are was completed. In 1922 he moved to Petrograd and turn to teaching at the institute for Artistic culture. In 1929 the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow gave Malevich a solo exhibition. In 1930 he was arrested because of his friendship with German artists, and many of his articles were destroyed. "In his will, after his death the body was cremated in suprematism manner, and then the urn was buried under a favorite oak tree near the village of artist Nemchinovka" (Ivanov, S., 2007). Over the grave was set monument depicting a black square. During the war the grave was lost.
In the later period of his life he worked in representational style. Malevich died on May 15, 1935 in Leningrad.
The influence
After the Russian Revolution, "Malevich became aware of the political significance of his art, drawing a parallel between the social and economic innovations of Communism and the new painting, free of academic rules and attentive to the development of modern technologies" (Harrison, G., 1992:46).
Private of the First Division, 1914 is one of Malevich's first efforts to appeal in his Suprematic style. This picture is abstract; one can easily infer the symbolism within it. A thermometer is the main component within the painting. "It immediately introduces the idea, not only of temperature but also of illness: war fever could easily lead to an overheating mentality…"(Harrison, G., 1992:67) The Soldier's eyes and mouth within the painting have been replaced by a military cross and the number eight. This suggests that the soldier has been drawn into the military tide and its ideas.
Although Malevich opposed the war, he was caught up in the Russian war drives and could not resist government demands for war propaganda. In 1914, he prepared two lithographs: The French Allies, and What a Boom! What a Blast! Mikhail Matyushin commented, "They are straight from the people, and if the words are on the coarse side, no need to worry, because that is how the people are-they have a different aesthetic sense" (Harrison, G., 1992:77).
Black Square
One of his greatest paintings was Black Square (1913). It is a black square on white field . Some critics called it a death square or" void as well "the greatest by far among the fairground tricks of instant culture. For Malevich however this square symbolized a full void, because it showed how painting can fulfill it self to specific reality. For him it represented only supermatism "the supremacy of pure feeling". The square means feeling and the white field is the void beyond this feeling. The Black Square is not as simple at it looks. Malevich creates a special reading of figure and ground that reads two ways. "For someone a Black Square is on top of a white ground, and for others it's a black hole surrounded by a white border" (Rosenblum, R., 1966:87-88). He believed that every object has a static façade and inner dynamic. This painting was the forerunner of the later 1960s movement, Minimalism. From that point on, Russia was the most progressive country in the world in terms of modern abstract art.
Kazimir Malevich was one of the first artists who completely abandoned representational art in favor of entirely abstract compositions. "Besides producing abstract images, Malevich developed a comprehensive theory of non-objective painting that remained influential long after his death" (Art Republic, 2010). Malevich's main input into the evolution of modern art consisted of establishing basic geometric forms, abstract by definition, as independent and meaningfully valid constituents of the pictorial composition.
