| Black Square | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Kazimir Malevich |
| Year | 1915 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 79.5 cm × 79.5 cm (31.3 in × 31.3 in) |
| Location | Tretyakov Gallery,Moscow |
Black Square (Russian:Чёрный квадрат) is a 1915oil on linen canvas painting by theRussian avant-garde artist and theoristKazimir Malevich.[1][2] There are four painted versions, the first of which was completed in 1915 and described by the artist as his breakthrough work and the inception of hisSuprematist art movement (1915–1919).[3]
In his manifesto for the Suprematist movement, Malevich stated that the paintings were intended as "a desperate struggle to free art from the ballast of the objective world" by focusing solely on form.[4] He sought to create paintings that all could understand and that would have an emotional impact comparable to religious works. The 1915Black Square was the turning point in his career and defined the aesthetic he was to follow for the remainder of his career; his other significant paintings include variants such asWhite on White (1918),Black Circle (c. 1924), andBlack Cross (c. 1920–23). Malevich painted three other versions in 1923, 1929, and between the late 1920s and early 1930s. Each version differs slightly in size and texture.
The original painting was first shown atThe Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10 in 1915. The last is thought to have been painted during the late 1920s or early 1930s. Malevich described the 1915 painting as the "zero point of painting"; since then, it has had a significant influence onminimalist art.[5][6][7]
A self-taught artist,Kazimir Malevich's early works, created while still a teenager, incorporate the style and motifs ofUkrainian and Russianfolk art andEastern Orthodoxicons.[8] In the early 1900s, when he was heavily influenced by late 19th-centuryImpressionism. He moved from his birthplace ofKiev (present-day Ukraine) to Moscow in 1907,[6] where he came into contact with leading Russianavant-garde artists such asNatalia Goncharova andMikhail Larionov.[9][10]
He first used the motif of a black square while working as thestage designer for the premiere of theCubo-Futuristic operaVictory over the Sun by the painter and composerMikhail Matyushin's (1861–1934), staged at the Luna Park Theater inSaint Petersburg on 3 December, 1913.[11] Although the opera is ostensibly acomedic farce, the plot satirises the religious dogma andTsarist autocracy then dominatingpre-revolution Russia.[11] Itslibretto was written by the poetVelimir Khlebnikov (1885–1922), and follows protagonists seeking to "abolish reason" by capturing the sun and destroying time. The opera ends with a world in darkness, which Khlebnikov intended to represent a future after the destruction of Russian tradition.[12] These ideas resonated with Malevich'syear zero views on the purpose of contemporary Modernist art.[13]
Malevich's sketches for the costumes seem largely influenced byCubism andFuturism. However, a number, including those known today asFuturist Strongman,Grave Digger andA Certain Evil Intender, are in colour and contain distinct black squares and rectangles.[14] During the pivotal scene depicting the death of the sun, black squares appear eight times: on a curtain and the backdrops, and on the coats and hats of the sun'spall bearers.[11][13] He was immediately aware of the design's potential, wrote pleading letters to Matyushin to retain it when the composer was planning a 1915 performance of the opera. In the letters, Malevich claimed that the square "will have great significance in painting" and is the "embryo of all possibilities; in its development it acquires a terrible strength."[14]
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Malevich created the first version in 1915 using broad strokes of thick black oil paint onto a 79.5cm x 79.5cmlinen canvas. The border and edges were applied with various shades of white and grey paint.[12]
Malevich was a prolific and talented self-publicist and has been described as both a "brilliant, grandiose, messianic figure" and a "fanatic pamphleteer".[9] Sensing a breakthrough, he declared the painting as a milestone in both his oeuvre and "in the history of art". He later wrote that he was so excited at the breakthrough that he was unable to "sleep, eat, or drink for an entire week after".[3]
The painting was first shown at the 1915The Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10 at theField of Mars square inSaint Petersburg (then Petrograd).[15] Its hanging in theicon corner emphasised the collision betweenModernism and traditionalEastern Orthodox culture.[16]Over the following decades, Malevich made three otheroil on canvas variants (in 1924, 1929, while the final version is thought to date from the late 1920s or early 1930s).[17] He created numerouslithographs of the image, used it to decorate his signature, and applied it to lapels he gave to his students.[3][18]
The reverse of the origional painting contains the inscription "1913", however, this is thought to refer to the year of the design's conception that year forVictory over the Sun.[8] He continued to refer to it asThe main Suprematist element. Square. 1913. According to an overview of the work byTate Modern, Malevich may have given an earlier date to appear more ahead of the curve during the early years ofAbstract art.[13]
In 2015, X-rays ofBlack Square revealed the existence of two previously undiscovered works under it. The The first painting appears to have done in a brightly-coloredCubo-Futurist style,then it was later painted over with what art researcher Yekaterina Voronina called a "proto-Suprematist composition. Also uncovered was a description that reads "Negroes battling in a cave." This could indicate that Malevich was replying to an earlier painting of a black square, which was created in 1897 by French writer and humoristAlphonse Allais. Allais titled his work "Combat des Negres dans une cave, pendant la nuit," or "Negroes fighting in a cellar at night,".[19]
Black Square is widely regarded by art historians as foundational in the development of bothmodern andabstract art.[20] Malevich said the paintings began theSuprematism movement, which emphasised colour and shape. The title "Suprematism" is derived from the wordsupremus (Russian: Супремус), which translates as "superior" or "perfected", which Malevich said reflected his desire to "liberate" painting frommimesis (imitation) andrepresentational art.[8]
Although the movement gained many supporters among theRussian avant-garde, it became overshadowed byconstructivism, whose manifesto better reflected the ideology of the early Soviet government.[citation needed] Today Suprematism is almost exclusively associated with Malevich and his apprenticeEl Lissitzky.[13]
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Malevich produced three oil-on-canvas copies of the original painting. The first copy was completed in 1923.The second copy was painted around 1923 in collaboration with his studentsAnna Leporskaya, Konstantin Rozhdestvensky and Nikolay Suyetin.[12] The thirdBlack Square (also at the Tretyakov Gallery) was painted c. 1929 for Malevich's solo exhibition, perhaps as a stand-in for the original which was by then in poor condition.[12][17]
The finalBlack Square is the smallest and may have been intended as a diptych along with the smaller againRed Square for the 1932 exhibition Artists of the RSFSR: 15 Years in Leningrad, where the two squares formed the centerpiece of the show.[17]
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Russian avant-garde art fell from favour duringJoseph Stalin leadership of theUSSR. Stalin was suspicious of people who travelled outside the Soviet Union and Malevich came to the attention of Stalin'ssecret police in early 1927 as a possible dissident when he travelled to Berlin to attend theGroße Deutsche Kunstausstellung exhibition, where around 70 of his paintings and drawings were scheduled for display.[13][21] Malevich was aware that progressive artists were likely to besuppressed in the Soviet Union and made attempts to relocate to Germany. However, theNazi party was already targeting so-called "degenerate art" in Germany,[13] that is art that did not conform to the idealisedAryan way of living, which was based around, according to the historianTony Wood a dedication to "family, home and church", and was "ironically...a mirror image of the socialist realism of the hated Communists."[21]
Malevich was arrested for several days in 1930. His work was officially banned in the USSR shortly after his death in 1935, when Stalin's favouredsocialist realism was designated the official art of the union and many other art forms were suppressed.[13]
AlthoughBlack Square wasn't exhibited again until the 1980s, today the work is regarded as historically significant inModern art, and one of the most recognisable 20th century paintings.[17]
The painting is in poor condition, in part because, under Stalin, it had been hidden and neglected in the Soviet archives for so long.[22] According to the American art criticPeter Schjeldahl, "the painting looks terrible: crackled, scuffed, and discoloured, as if it had spent the past eighty-eight years patching a broken window".[6]
