The best paintings by Malevich. Malevich you didn’t know: little-known facts about the artist’s life and work

Kazimir Malevich is not only “Black Square”. What is the meaning of Malevich's work? Why did he become so popular? It turns out that Malevich worked as a fabric designer and drew sketches of costumes for the play. And much more... We bring to your attention little-known creativity artist.

Malevich, is there any point?

I say “Malevich” - you imagine a black square. But Malevich painted not only a square, but also many different colored figures. And not only figures. But now let's talk about them. When you look at Malevich’s paintings, the question arises: “why did he paint this?” By the way, Malevich answers the question “why” - very long and boring in his philosophical works. To put it simply and briefly, it was a protest. Creativity as protest. An attempt to create something completely new. And there’s no arguing that Malevich managed to surprise and shock. A hundred years have passed since the “Black Square” was created, and it still haunts people, and many consider it their duty to dismiss “I can do it too.” And you can do this, and Malevich could do it. Malevich was the first to think of this - and therefore became popular.

Even the artist draws inspiration from the master’s paintings!

Malevich was able to come up with a new direction. This direction of painting is called “Suprematism”. From the word “supremus”, which means “highest”. At first, Malevich called color “high.” After all, color is the main thing in painting. And then, with the advent of popularity, the artist already called his style “superior”. I could afford it. Now Suprematism is the highest, the best, the only real style painting.

Suprematist artists draw different geometric shapes, most often square, rectangle, circle and line. The colors are simple - black, white, red and yellow. But there may be exceptions - every artist draws the way he wants.

If you want to understand the directions contemporary art, then we recommend reading a couple of books in the selection.

How did Malevich understand painting?

This can be said in one quote:

“When the habit of seeing in paintings images of corners of nature, Madonnas and shameless Venuses disappears, then only we will see a purely pictorial work.”

How does it differ from the work of the “unclean”? The fact that painting, according to Malevich, should create something that has never existed before. Create, not repeat. This is what distinguishes an artist from a craftsman. The artisan “stamps” the product. And the artist’s work is one such thing. Without repeating what has already been created. If we see a landscape on a canvas, it is a “repetition” of nature. If a person is drawn, this is also a repetition, because people already exist in life.

Malevich coined the term – pointlessness. In the picture we must see the non-objectivity, and only in this case the picture is real. Because if we see an object, it means that this object exists in the world. If it exists, it means that the artist did not draw anything new. Then why did he draw at all? This is the philosophy.

In addition to the famous “Black Square,” Malevich also painted white and red squares. But for some reason they did not become so popular.

So, the meaning of Malevich’s paintings is that the artist comes up with something that has never happened and never will. This is how he excites the audience. The public likes to discuss, condemn, or vice versa – admire. That is why Malevich gained popularity, and debates about his work have not subsided to this day. But Malevich is not only Suprematism.

What else did Malevich paint?

All artists, before moving on to such experiments, first learned academic painting. The one that follows the rules to which we are accustomed. Malevich is no exception. He painted landscapes and portraits and was engaged in fresco painting.

Sketch of a fresco painting entitled “The Triumph of Heaven”:

Scenery. "Spring":

Portrait of a girl:

After this, Malevich moved on to experiments. The artist tried to convey the movement of people using geometric shapes. One of the most popular paintings in this style is called "Lumberjack". The effect of movement is achieved through smooth color transitions.

And these are paintings from the artist’s “Peasant Cycle”. “To the harvest. Marfa and Vanka." At first glance, the figures seem motionless, but another moment and we will see movement.

Another “moving” picture is “Harvest”:

And this picture is called “Athletes”. The main thing here is color and symmetry. This is an example of how the Suprematism movement can be used not only in drawing squares and lines. The silhouettes consist of multi-colored figures. But at the same time we see people in the picture. And we even notice the sports uniform.

Fabrics from Malevich

Malevich created sketches of such fabrics. Their ornamentation was invented under the influence of the same Suprematism: on the fabric we see figures and typical colors - black, red, blue, green.

Based on the sketches of Malevich and Alexandra Ekster (artist and designer), the craftswomen of the village of Verbovka made embroidery. They embroidered scarves, tablecloths and pillows, and then sold them at fairs. Such embroideries were especially popular at fairs in Berlin.

Malevich also drew sketches of costumes for the play “Victory over the Sun.” It was an experimental play that defied logic. The only one musical instrument which accompanied the piece was an out-of-tune piano. From left to right: Attentive worker, Athlete, Bully.

What inspired Malevich?

How was Malevich able to come up with a new direction? Amazing fact, but the artist was inspired folk art. In his autobiography, he called ordinary peasant women his first art teachers. The future artist looked at their work and realized that he wanted to learn the same way. Take a closer look at the embroidery - this is the beginning of Suprematism. Here we see the same geometry that Malevich would later create. These are ornaments without beginning or end - multi-colored figures on a white background. Squares. In Malevich's Suprematist drawings the background is white, because it means infinity. And the colors of the patterns are the same: red, black, blue are used.

1. At the porcelain factory in Petrograd, tableware and tea sets were decorated according to the sketches of Malevich and his students.

2. Malevich was the designer of the bottle of Severny cologne. The artist designed the bottle at the request of perfumer Alexandre Brocard. This is a transparent glass bottle, shaped like an ice mountain. And on top there is a cap in the shape of a bear.

3. The familiar word “weightlessness” was invented by Malevich. The artist understood development (whether creative or technical) as an airplane that had overcome its weight and taken to the sky. That is, weightlessness for Malevich meant an ideal. And weight is a frame, a weight that pulls people down. And over time, the word began to be used in its usual meaning.

4. A true artist has art everywhere. Even in everyday life. This is what Malevich's office looked like. We see a black square, a cross and a circle. In the middle is one of the Suprematist paintings that the artist painted at that time.

5. Malevich had wonderful feeling humor. He signed some paintings like this: “The meaning of the painting is unknown to the author.” Funny, but honest.

6. There is still not a single Malevich museum in the world. But there are monuments.

Opening of the monument to the “Black Square”:

Monument to the work of Malevich:

7. Malevich is not only an artist and designer, but also a writer: he wrote poems, articles and philosophical books.

8. Malevich was abroad only once, but his work was popular throughout Europe. And now most of his paintings are in museums in Europe and America.

9. All his life the artist thought that he was born in 1878. And only after the celebration of his 125th anniversary it became clear that his real date of birth was 1879. Therefore, Malevich’s 125th anniversary was celebrated twice.

10. Recently programmers came up with the “Malevich font”. It's difficult to read, but looks interesting.

7 facts about the “Black Square”

1. The first name of the “Black Square” is “Black quadrangle on a white background.” And it’s true: “Black Square” is not actually a square. After all, neither side is equal to the other. It's almost invisible - but you can apply a ruler and measure.

2. In total, Malevich painted 4 “Black Squares”. They are all different in size and are located in Russian museums. The artist himself called his square “the beginning of everything.” But in fact, the first “Black Square” is a painted over picture. Which one – we don’t know. There was a lot of debate about whether to remove the paint from the square and look or leave everything as is. We decided to leave it. After all, first of all, this was the will of the artist. And under the x-ray you can see what kind of drawing Malevich began to draw. Most likely, this is also something geometric:

3. Malevich himself explained “painting over” differently. He said that he drew the square quickly, that the idea arose as an inspiration. Therefore, there was no time to look for a clean linen - and he took the one that was lying at hand.

4. “Black Square” quickly became a symbol of new art. It was used as a signature. Artists sewed a square piece of black fabric onto clothing. This meant that they were artists of a new generation. In the photo: Malevich’s students under a flag in the form of a black square.

5. What does “Black Square” mean? Everyone can understand the picture in their own way. Some people believe that in a square we see space, because in space there is no up and down. Only weightlessness and infinity. Malevich said that a square is a feeling, and White background- nothing. It turns out that this feeling is empty. And also - the square does not occur in nature, unlike other figures. This means it is not related to real world. This is the whole meaning of Suprematism.

6. At his first exhibition in St. Petersburg, Malevich defiantly hung the “Black Square” in the corner where icons usually hung. The artist challenged the public. And the public was immediately divided into opponents of the new art and its admirers.

7. Main value“Black Square” is that every admirer of Malevich’s work can hang a reproduction of the painting in his home. Moreover, it is of our own production.

Finally, I offer this quote from Malevich, which explains all of his work:

“They always demand that art be understandable, but they never demand that they adapt their heads to understanding.”

Born in Kyiv on February 11 (23), 1878 in a family of immigrants from Poland (his father worked as a manager at sugar factories). In 1895–1896 he studied at the Kyiv drawing school of N.I. Murashko; Having arrived in Moscow in 1905, he studied in the studio of F.I. Rerberg. He went through almost all the styles of that time - from painting in the spirit of the Itinerants to impressionism and mystical symbolism, and then to the post-impressionistic “primitive” (Ball operator in the bathhouse, 1911–1912, City Museum, Amsterdam). He was a participant in the exhibitions “Jack of Diamonds” and “Donkey’s Tail”, and a member of the “Youth Union”. Lived in Moscow (until 1918) and Leningrad.

Exposing academic artistic stereotypes, he showed the bright temperament of a critic-polemicist. In his works of the first half of the 1910s, more and more fervently innovative, semi-abstract, the style of cubo-futurism was defined, combining cubist plastic forms with futuristic dynamics (The Grinder (The Flickering Principle), 1912, Yale University Gallery, New Haven, USA; Lumberjack, 1912–1913, City Museum, Amsterdam).

Malevich’s method of “abstruse realism”, the poetics of the absurd, the illogical grotesque (Englishman in Moscow, ibid.; Aviator, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; both works - 1914) also gained importance in these years from Malevich. After the start of the war, he performed a cycle of patriotic propaganda pieces (with texts by V.V. Mayakovsky) for the publishing house “Modern Lubok”.

The key meaning for the master was the work on the design of the opera Victory over the Sun (music by M.V. Matyushin, text by A.E. Kruchenykh and V.V. Khlebnikov; the premiere took place in St. Petersburg Luna Park in 1913); From the tragicomic burlesque about the collapse of the old and the birth of a new world, the concept of the famous Black Square arose, first shown at the exhibition “0, 10” in 1915 (stored in Tretyakov Gallery).

This simple geometric figure on a white background is both a kind of apocalyptic curtain over the past history of mankind and a call to build the future. The motif of an omnipotent artist-builder starting from scratch also dominates in “Suprematism” - a new method designed, according to Malevich, to crown all previous movements of the avant-garde (hence the name itself - from the Latin supremus, “highest”). The theory is illustrated by a large cycle of non-objective geometric compositions, which ends in 1918 with “white suprematism”, where colors and forms, floating in the cosmic void, are reduced to a minimum, almost to absolute whiteness.

After the October Revolution, Malevich first acted as an “artist-commissar”, actively participating in revolutionary changes, including monumental agitation. Glorifies the “new planet” of avant-garde art in articles in the newspaper “Anarchy” (1918). He sums up the results of his search during his stay in Vitebsk (1919–1922), where he creates the “Association of Proponents of New Art” (Unovis), striving (including in his main philosophical work The world as non-objectivity) to outline a universal artistic and pedagogical system that decisively restructures the relationship between man and nature.

Upon his return from Vitebsk, Malevich headed (since 1923) State Institute artistic culture(Ginkhuk), putting forward ideas that radically updated modern design and architecture (volumetric, three-dimensional Suprematism, embodied in household items (porcelain products) and building models, the so-called “architectons”). Malevich dreams of going into “pure design,” becoming increasingly alienated from the revolutionary utopia.

Notes of anxious alienation are characteristic of many of his easel works from the late 1910s to the 1930s, where the dominant motifs of facelessness, loneliness, emptiness are no longer cosmically primordial, but completely earthly (a cycle of paintings with figures of peasants against the backdrop of empty fields, as well as the canvas Red house, 1932, Russian Museum). In later paintings the master returns to the classical principles of painting (Self-Portrait, 1933, ibid.).

The authorities are increasingly suspicious of Malevich's activities (he was arrested twice, in 1927 and 1930). Towards the end of his life he finds himself in an environment of social isolation. The original “school of Malevich”, formed from his Vitebsk and Leningrad students (V.M. Ermolaeva, A.A. Leporskaya, N.M. Suetin, L.M. Khidekel, I.G. Chashnik and others) goes either into applied design, or into underground “unofficial” art.

Fearing for the fate of his legacy, in 1927, during a business trip abroad, the master left a significant part of his paintings and archive in Berlin (later they formed the basis of the Malevich fund in the Amsterdam City Museum).

Born into a family of immigrants from Poland, he was the eldest among nine children. In 1889-94. the family often moved from place to place; in the village of Parkhomovka near Belopolye, Malevich graduated from a five-year agronomy school. In 1895-96. studied for a short time at the Kyiv drawing school of N. I. Murashko. From 1896, after moving to Kursk, he served as a draftsman in technical management railway In the fall of 1905 he came to Moscow, attended classes at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and the Stroganov School for educational purposes; lived and worked in the house-commune of the artist V.V. Kurdyumov in Lefortovo. Attended classes in the private studio of F. I. Rerberg (1905-10). Spending the summer in Kursk, Malevich worked in the open air, developing as a neo-impressionist.

Unemployed

Woman

Malevich participated in exhibitions initiated by M. F. Larionov: “Jack of Diamonds” (1910-11), “Donkey’s Tail” (1912) and “Target” (1913). In the spring of 1911 he became close to the St. Petersburg society “Youth Union”, of which he became a member in January 1913 (left in February 1914); in 1911-14 he exhibited his works at association exhibitions and participated in debate evenings.

Apple tree in bloom

Reaper on a red background

Decorative and expressionistic paintings by Malevich from the turn of the 1900s to the 1910s. testified to the assimilation of the heritage of Gauguin and the Fauves, transformed taking into account the pictorial tendencies of Russian “Cézanneism”. At the exhibitions, the artist also presented his own version of Russian neo-primitivism - paintings on the themes peasant life(canvases of the so-called first peasant cycle) and a number of works with scenes from “provincial life” (“Bather”, “On the Boulevard”, “Gardener”, all 1911, Stedelijk Museum, etc.).

Two women in the garden

Woman in a yellow hat

Since 1912, a creative collaboration began with the poets A. E. Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. Malevich designed a number of publications by Russian futurists (A. Kruchenykh. Blown up. Drawing by K. Malevich and O. Rozanova. St. Petersburg, 1913; V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh , E. Guro. Three. St. Petersburg, 1913; A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov. Game in Hell. 2nd additional edition. Drawing by K. Malevich and O. Rozanova. St. Petersburg, 1914; V. Khlebnikov. Roar! Gloves. Drawing by K. Malevich. St. Petersburg, 1914; etc.).

In the hayfield

Man

His painting of these years demonstrated the domestic version of futurism, called “cubo-futurism”: a cubist change in form, designed to affirm the intrinsic value and independence of painting, was combined with the principle of dynamism cultivated by futurism [“The Grinder (The Principle of Flickering)”, 1912, etc.]. Work over the scenery and costumes for the production at the end of 1913 of the futuristic opera “Victory over the Sun” (text by A. Kruchenykh, music by M. Matyushin, prologue by V. Khlebnikov) was subsequently interpreted by Malevich as the emergence of Suprematism.

Female worker

First Division Soldier

In painting at this time, the artist developed themes and plots of “abstruse realism”, which used alogism and irrationality of images as a tool for the destruction of ossified traditional art; illogical painting, expressing an abstruse, transrational reality, was built on a shocking montage of heterogeneous plastic and figurative elements that formed a composition filled with a certain meaning that shames the ordinary mind with its incomprehensibility (“Lady at a Tram Stop”, 1913; “Aviator”, “Composition with Mona Lisa", both 1914; "An Englishman in Moscow", 1914, etc.).

Composition with Gioconda (Partial eclipse in Moscow)

Swimmers

After the outbreak of World War I, he executed a number of propaganda patriotic popular prints with texts by V. V. Mayakovsky for the publishing house “Modern Lubok”. In the spring of 1915, the first canvases of the abstract geometric style appeared, which soon received the name “Suprematism”. Malevich gave the name “Suprematism” to the invented direction - regular geometric figures, painted in pure local colors and immersed in a kind of “white abyss” where the laws of dynamics and statics reigned. The term he coined went back to the Latin root “suprem”, which formed in native language artist, Polish, the word “suprematia”, which translated meant “superiority”, “supremacy”, “dominance”. At the first stage of the existence of the new artistic system With this word, Malevich sought to fix the primacy, the dominance of color over all other components of painting.

Portrait of the artist's daughter

Runner

At the exhibition “O.10” at the end of 1915 he showed for the first time 39 paintings under common name“Suprematism of Painting,” including his most famous work, “Black Square (Black Square on a White Background)”; At the same exhibition, the brochure “From Cubism to Suprematism” was distributed. In the summer of 1916 Malevich was called up to military service; demobilized in 1917.

Two male figures

A carpenter

In May 1917, he was elected to the council of the professional Union of Artists and Painters in Moscow as a representative from the left federation (young faction). In August he became chairman of the Art Section of the Moscow Council of Soldiers' Deputies, where he conducted extensive cultural and educational work. In October 1917 he was elected chairman of the Jack of Diamonds society. In November 1917, the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee appointed Malevich Commissioner for the Protection of Ancient Monuments and a member of the Commission for the Protection of Artistic Treasures, whose responsibility was to protect the Kremlin’s valuables.

Harvesting

Peasant woman

In March-June 1918 he actively collaborated in the Moscow newspaper Anarchy, publishing about two dozen articles. Participated in work on decorative decoration Moscow for the holiday of May 1. In June he was elected a member of the Moscow Art Collegium of the Art Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, where he joined the museum commission together with V. E. Tatlin and B. D. Korolev.

Pilot

Cow and violin

As a result of differences with members of the Moscow board, he moved to Petrograd in the summer of 1918. In the Petrograd Free Workshops, Malevich was entrusted with one of the workshops. He designed the Petrograd production of V. V. Mayakovsky’s “Mystery Bouffe” directed by V. E. Meyerhold (1918). In 1918, canvases of “white suprematism” were created, the last stage of Suprematist painting.

In the country

Portrait of Ivan Klyun

In December 1918 he returned to Moscow. He took over the leadership of the painting workshops in the Moscow I and II State Art Museums (in the first, together with N. A. Udaltsova).
In July 1919, he completed his first major theoretical work, “On New Systems in Art,” in Nemchinovka. At the beginning of November 1919, he moved to Vitebsk, where he received the position of head of a workshop at the Vitebsk People’s Art School, headed by Marc Chagall.

Non-stop station. Kuntsevo

Portrait of Una

At the end of the same year, Malevich's first solo exhibition took place in Moscow; representing the artist's concept, it unfolded from early impressionistic works through neo-primitivism, cubo-futurism and alogical canvases to Suprematism, divided into three periods: black, colored, white; The exhibition ended with stretchers with blank canvases, a clear manifestation of the rejection of painting as such. The Vitebsk period (1919-22) was devoted to the composition of theoretical and philosophical texts; Almost everything was written in those years philosophical works Malevich, including several versions of the fundamental work “Suprematism. The world is like non-objectivity."

Three women

Gardener

As part of the activities of the association “Approvers of the New Art” (Unovis) he created, Malevich tested many new ideas in the artistic, pedagogical, utilitarian and practical spheres of Suprematism.

Bathers

Lumberjack

At the end of May 1922 he moved from Vitebsk to Petrograd. From the fall of 1922 he taught drawing at the architectural department of the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineers. He created several samples and designed Suprematist paintings for porcelain products (1923). He executed the first drawings of “planites”, which became the design stage in the emergence of spatial-volumetric Suprematism.

Suprematism

Samovar

In the 1920s headed the State Institute of Artistic Culture (Ginkhuk). He also headed the formal theoretical department in Ginkhuk, which was later renamed the department of pictorial culture. Within experimental work Institute conducted analytical research, developed own theory surplus element in painting, and also began to produce volumetric Suprematist structures, “architectons”, which, according to the author, served as models of new architecture, the “Suprematist order”, which was to form the basis of a new, comprehensive universal style.

Head

Portrait of the artist's wife

After the defeat of Ginkhuk in 1926, Malevich and his staff were transferred to the State Institute of Art History, where he headed the committee for the experimental study of artistic culture.

Peasant

Red figure

In 1927 he went on a business trip abroad to Warsaw (March 8-29) and Berlin (March 29 - June 5). An exhibition was held in Warsaw, at which he gave a lecture. In Berlin, Malevich was given a hall at the annual Great Berlin art exhibition(May 7 - September 30). On April 7, 1927, he visited the Bauhaus in Dessau, where he met V. Gropius and Laszlo Moholy-Nady; in the same year, Malevich’s book “The World as Non-Objectivity” was published as part of the Bauhaus publications.

On the boulevard

Spring

Having received a sudden order to return to the USSR, he urgently left for his homeland; He left all the paintings and the archive in Berlin in the care of friends, as he intended to make a large exhibition tour with a stop in Paris in the future. Upon arrival in the USSR, he was arrested and spent three weeks in prison.

High society in top hats

Portrait of a family member

In 1928, the publication of a series of articles by Malevich began in the Kharkov magazine “New Generation”. From this year, preparing a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery (1929), the artist returned to the themes and subjects of his works from the early peasant cycle, dating the newly painted paintings to 1908-10; Post-Suprematist paintings made up the second peasant cycle.

With stroller

Scenery

At the end of the 1920s. A number of neo-impressionist works were also created, the dating of which was shifted by the author to the 1900s. Another series of post-Suprematist paintings consisted of canvases where the generalized abstract forms of male and female heads, torsos and figures were used to construct an ideal plastic image.

Reaper

Athletes

In 1929 he taught at the Kiev Art Institute, coming there every month. The personal exhibition in Kyiv, which ran in February-May 1930, was harshly criticized - in the fall of the same year, the artist was arrested and imprisoned for several weeks in the Leningrad OGPU prison.

Yellow chaos

Suprematism

In 1931 he created sketches of the paintings of the Red Theater in Leningrad, the interior of which was decorated according to his design. In 1932-33 headed the experimental laboratory at the Russian Museum. Malevich's work in the last period of his life gravitated towards the realistic school of Russian painting. In 1933, a serious illness arose that led to the artist’s death. According to his will, he was buried in Nemchinovka, a holiday village near Moscow. Painter, graphic artist, teacher, art theorist. In 1895-1896 he studied at the Kyiv Drawing School, in the mid-1900s he attended classes at the Moscow School of Sculpture and Architecture and the Stroganov School, and studied in a private studio in Moscow.

Landscape with white houses

Red Cavalry

He participated in many exhibitions initiated by Mikhail Larionov, as well as in the events of the St. Petersburg society "Youth Union" (1911-1914).

In 1915, at an exhibition in Petrograd, he showed thirty-nine paintings under the general title “Suprematism of Painting,” including his most famous work, “Black Square.” Suprematist non-objectivity was considered as a new stage of artistic consciousness.

Flower girl

Veseny landscape

From the end of 1919 to the spring of 1922 he lived and worked in Vitebsk. After moving to Petrograd (1923), he headed the Museum of Artistic Culture, subsequently the State Institute of Artistic Culture (Ginkhuk, closed in 1926), where Nikolai Suetin, Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, Anna Leporskaya studied and worked under his leadership.

Black square and red square

Black cross

After a trip to Poland and Germany (1927) he returned to figurative painting. In 1928-32 created more than a hundred paintings and many drawings included in the “second peasant cycle.” He showed most of them at a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery in 1929.

Black square

1. Black Suprematist square, 1915
Canvas, oil. 79.5×79.5 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The most famous work Kazimir Malevich, created in 1915 specifically for the final futurist exhibition “0.10”, which opened in St. Petersburg on December 19, 1915. “Black Square” is part of the cycle of suprematist (from Latin supremus - highest) works by Kazimir Malevich. Being a type of abstractionism, Suprematism was expressed in combinations of multi-colored planes of the simplest geometric shapes devoid of pictorial meaning. Suprematist works occupied separate room Exhibitions. Among the thirty-nine Suprematist paintings, in the most prominent place, in the so-called “red corner”, where icons are usually hung in Russian houses, hung the “Black Square”.
“Black Square” is part of the cycle of Suprematist works by Kazimir Malevich, in which the artist explored the basic possibilities of color and composition; is, according to plan, part of a triptych, which also contains the “Black Circle” and “Black Cross”.
The “black square” has neither top nor bottom; approximately equal distances separate the edges of the square from the vertical and horizontal lines of the frame. Few deviations from pure geometry remind viewers that the picture was, after all, painted with a brush, that the artist did not resort to compasses and rulers, he drew an elementary geoform “by eye”, and became familiar with it. inner meaning intuition. We are used to thinking that the background of the “Black Square” is white. In fact, it is the color of baked milk. And in the abrupt strokes of the background, different layers of paint alternate - thin and dense. But on the black plane it is impossible to find a single brush mark - the square looks uniform.
Attempts by convinced fans of figurative art alone, who believe that the artist is misleading them, to examine the canvas in order to find another original version under the top layer of painting have been made more than once. However, technological examination did not confirm the presence of any other image on this canvas.
Subsequently, Malevich, for various purposes, performed several original repetitions of “Black Square”. There are now four known versions of the “Black Square”, differing in design, texture and color. All the author's repetitions of the painting are kept in Russia, in state collections: two works in the Tretyakov Gallery, one in the Russian Museum and one in the Hermitage.
It is interesting that in 1893, a painting by Alphonse Allais with a blank black field of canvas, entitled “Battle of Negroes in a Deep Cave on a Dark Night,” was exhibited.

2. Black circle, 1923
Canvas, oil. 106×105.5 cm

“Black Circle” is one of the most famous paintings by Kazimir Malevich, the founder of a new movement in painting - Suprematism.
The painting belongs to the direction of Russian non-objective painting, called Suprematism, or “new pictorial realism” by K. S. Malevich. The pointlessness of Suprematism for K. S. Malevich was called by him a conclusion from objective world, a new aspect that revealed nature, space, the Universe to the artist. Suprematist forms “fly” and are in a state of weightlessness. The "Black Circle" was one of them for the artist three main modules of the new plastic system, the style-forming potential of the new plastic idea - Suprematism.
The painting was painted in 1915, later the author made versions of it for various exhibitions - the author’s repetitions. The first “Black Circle” was painted in 1915 and was exhibited at the “Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings “0.10”. Now kept in a private collection. The second version of the painting was created by Malevich’s students (A. Leporskaya, K. Rozhdestvensky, N. Suetin) under his leadership in 1923. This painting is included in the triptych: “Black Square” - “Black Cross” - “Black Circle”. Currently kept in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

3. Red Square, 1915
Canvas, oil. 53×53 cm
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

“Red Square” is a painting by Kazimir Malevich, painted in 1915. The title on the back is “A Woman in Two Dimensions.” It is a red quadrangle on a white background, slightly different in shape from a square. Exhibited at the 1915 exhibition. In the exhibition catalog of 1915, it received a second title - “Pictorial realism of a peasant woman in two dimensions.” Currently located in the Russian Museum.
In 1920, Malevich wrote about this painting that “in the hostel it acquired further significance” “as a signal of revolution.”
Ksana Blank compares Malevich's Suprematism with the work of Leo Tolstoy. In particular, Tolstoy’s story “Notes of a Madman” describes the room where Fyodor begins to experience mortal melancholy: “A clean whitewashed square room. I remember how painful it was for me that this room was exactly square. There was one window, with a red curtain.” That is, a red square on a white background is, in fact, a symbol of melancholy. Malevich himself explained the concept of his first “Black Square” that “the square is a feeling, the white space is the emptiness behind this feeling.” Ksana Blank comes to the conclusion that, as in Tolstoy’s story, the red square on a white background graphically depicts the fear of death and emptiness. However, this interpretation of Ksana Blank completely contradicts the title of the painting: “Woman in Two Dimensions,” which Malevich left on its back.

4. Red cavalry gallops, 1928-1932
Canvas, oil. 91×140 cm
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Written in 1928-1932, exact date unknown, for many of his later paintings Malevich put more early date. IN currently kept in the Russian Museum.
The picture is divided into three parts: sky, earth and people (red cavalry). The ratio of the width of the earth and the sky is in proportion 0.618 (golden ratio). Cavalry of three groups of four riders, each rider blurred, possibly a cavalry of four ranks. The earth is drawn from 12 colors.
Painting for a long time was the only abstract work of the artist recognized official history Soviet art, which was facilitated by its name and depiction of the events of the October Revolution. Malevich put on back side date 18, although in fact it was written later.

5. Suprematist composition, 1916
Canvas, oil. 88.5 cm×71 cm cm
Private collection

The painting was painted by the artist in 1916. In 1919-20 she exhibited in Moscow. In 1927, Malevich exhibited the painting at exhibitions in Warsaw, and later in Berlin, where the painting remained after Casimir left for the USSR in June 1927. The painting was later given to the German architect Hugo Hering, who sold it to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where it was kept for about 50 years.
Throughout the 20th century, the painting was repeatedly exhibited at various exhibitions, mainly European. The Amsterdam collection of Malevich's works is the largest outside former USSR- was acquired by the city authorities in 1958 for a substantial sum at that time of 120 thousand guilders from the heirs famous architect Hugo Haring. He took these paintings out of Nazi Germany, where they were subject to destruction as “degenerate art.” Malevich’s paintings fell into Haring’s hands by accident: the artist left more than a hundred canvases under his supervision in 1927, when they were exhibited in Berlin, and the author himself was urgently summoned to his homeland.
When in 2003-2004. The museum exhibited Malevich's paintings in the United States; the artist's heirs challenged the rights of Haring (and, accordingly, the museum) to dispose of them. After 4 years judicial trial the parties came to a settlement agreement, according to the terms of which the museum ceded five significant paintings from your collection. After 17 years of legal disputes, the painting was returned to the artist's heirs.
On November 3, 2008, at Sotheby's auction in New York, the painting was sold to an unknown buyer for $60,002,500, becoming one of the most expensive paintings in a story written by a Russian artist.

6. Winter landscape, 1930
Canvas, oil. 54x48.5 cm
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

The depiction of a winter day in this painting corresponds to the artist’s desire to change traditions and use different means of expression than before. The style of writing is primitivist, the picture seems to have been painted by an inept child’s hand, when there are no skills to draw complex objects yet, and an inexperienced artist draws what he sees with geometric shapes. Malevich, an experienced artist, specifically used this method to convey the feeling of a winter day. His trees are made up of circles that are meant to represent caps of snow. The figure in the background shows how deep the snow is. The artist uses pure, saturated colors that are unconventional to depict winter.

7. Cow and violin, 1913
Oil on wood 48.8 x 25.8 cm.
Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

In 1913, between visits to St. Petersburg, Malevich found himself in Kuntsevo, not far from Nemchinovka, where he and his family rented a dacha - it was much cheaper than renting an apartment in Moscow. The lack of money was chronic. Sometimes there was not enough money even for canvas - and then furniture was used. Three shelves of an ordinary bookcase were destined to gain immortality, becoming three paintings by Malevich. “Toilet Box”, “Non-Stop Station”, “Cow and Violin” have the same dimensions, and in the corners of their wooden rectangles there are visible sealed round holes through which the racks that once connected them once passed.
According to Malevich, the fundamental law of creativity was the “law of contrasts,” which he also called “the moment of struggle.” The first picture that clearly embodied the paradox of the open law was the Cow and the Violin. It is noteworthy that the author considered it necessary to explain the shocking meaning of the plot with a detailed inscription on the back: “An illogical comparison of two forms - “a cow and a violin” - as a moment of struggle with logic, naturalness, petty-bourgeois meaning and prejudices. K. Malevich.” In “The Cow and the Violin” Malevich deliberately combined two forms, two “quotations” symbolizing various areas art.

8. Grinder, 1913
Oil on canvas 79.5x79.5 cm
Art Gallery Yale University

The painting "The Grinder" was painted by Kazemir Malevich in 1913. The painting is currently in the Yale University Art Gallery. Currently, "The Grinder" is a classic painting of Russian Cubo-Futurism. Another name for the painting is “The Flickering Principle.” It is this that perfectly indicates the artist’s thought. In the picture we see a repetition of countless fragmented contours and silhouettes, which are in a gray-blue color. When looking at the picture, you can feel the flickering process of sharpening a knife. The grinder finds himself at different points in space at the same time.

9. Reaper, 1912
Oil on canvas 68x60 cm
Astrakhan Regional Art Gallery named after. B.M. Kustodieva, Astrakhan

Malevich’s paintings are very famous, which are usually attributed to the first peasant series - these are such paintings as “The Reaper”, “The Carpenter”, “Harvesting Rye” and other paintings. These paintings clearly show the turning point in Malevich’s vision of creativity. The figures of peasants busy with daily concerns are spread over the entire field of the picture; they are primitivistically simplified, deliberately enlarged and deformed in the name of greater expressiveness, iconographic in the sound of color and strictly maintained flatness. Villager, their work and life are exalted and glorified. Malevich’s peasants, as if made up of curved sheets of hard material with a metallic sheen, for all their sketchiness, initially possessed recognizable forms of real male and female figures. female figures. Roughly carved heads and powerful bodies were most often placed in profile; the characters depicted from the front impressed with their monumentality.

10. Self-portrait, 1933
Oil on canvas 73 x 66 cm
Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

This unexpected realistic “Self-Portrait”, created in 1933, became the creative testament of the great Russian avant-garde artist. By that time he had already discovered terrible disease, there was little time left to live. By the way, some researchers claim that the development of prostate cancer was provoked by specific methods of influence used on Malevich during interrogations in 1930. Be that as it may, the master left unbroken. And this portrait, clearly focused on high Renaissance examples, irrefutably proves this. Malevich does not give up anything (the Suprematist background of the picture alone is worth it!), asserting the artist’s right to free creativity, which was prohibited in totalitarian state, preoccupied with the structure of the earthly paradise. The very granite statuesque pose, the solemn gesture itself - all this is evidence that even on the verge of death Malevich does not renounce his mission.

Malevich Kazimir Severinovich was born on February 11 (23), 1878 in rural areas city ​​of Kyiv. Malevich's parents were native Poles. Kazimir's father, Severin Antonovich Malevich, worked as the manager of a sugar factory, owned by one of the well-known entrepreneurs at that time, Tereshchenko. Kazimir's mother, Ludviga Alexandrovna, was simply a heroic woman; she gave birth to 14 children. Unfortunately, only 9 were able to enter independent life. Kazemir Malevich was the eldest: he had 4 brothers and 4 sisters.

At the age of 15, Kazimir got his first set of paints, which his mother gave him. She was a creative woman: she knitted and embroidered.
Because of their father's work, the Malevichs had to frequently move from place to place. Therefore, Kazimir studied in different places, a little bit everywhere. He graduated from the agronomic school (5 classes) in the village of Parkhomovka, studied a little at the Kyiv drawing school of N.I. Murashko.

In 1896, the Malevich family moved again and settled in Kursk. There, in 1899, Malevich and his brother Mieczyslaw married the Zgleitz sisters (Kazimira and Maria). Kazimira gave birth to a son, Anatoly, to Malevich in 1901, and a daughter, Galina, in 1905.

To raise a family, money was needed, and Malevich got a job in the Administration of the Kursk-Moscow Railway. Nevertheless, he does not forget about art. Together with his friend Lev Kvachevsky and other like-minded people, Malevich organizes art club in Kursk. Greater emphasis was placed on working from life. Everything went well, but for Malevich all these processes were too standard, as in all other schools. He wanted something more. Kazimir began to think about a trip to Moscow. He started by applying to study at Moscow school painting, but he was not enrolled. Then in 1905 he came to Moscow and began to live in Leforto in an art commune. But the money quickly ran out and he had to return back to Kursk in 1906 and go to work again in the same positions. In the summer, Malevich tried to re-enter the Moscow School, but again failed. In 1907, the family of Kazimira and Kazimir Malevich moved to Moscow, where a third attempt was made to enter the school, but it was not successful.
During this period, Malevich already produced works, mainly in the style of impressionism and neo-impressionism. These are the works "Church", "Spring Landscape". These are early works, where there are still many nuances, they are difficult to perceive. But the works “Girl Without Duty”, “Boulevard”, “Flower Girl” and “On the Boulevard” were made in a different style and were written directly from the nature of the actions taking place.
Since Malevich failed to enter the Moscow School, he went to study with Ivan Fedorovich Rerberg in 1905. In Moscow he was a fairly well-known figure in art society. In the period from 1907 to 1910, Malevich regularly exhibited his paintings at the Association's exhibitions.

While studying with Rorberg, Malevich met Ivan Vasilyevich Klyunkov, better known by his nickname Klyun. They became close friends to such an extent that Malevich moved to live with his family in the Klyunkovs’ house.

Malevich tries himself in religious painting. ("Shroud"). Also, together with Klyun, they worked on Sketches for fresco painting in 1907. By 1909, Malevich managed to get a divorce and remarry Sofya Mikhailovna Rafalovich, a children's writer. Her father’s house in Nemchinovka has since become the most expensive place for the writer.

In 1911, Malevich exhibited a lot. In addition to Moscow exhibitions, he also participated in the “Youth Union” exhibition in Peturburg. At the Moscow exhibition "Donkey's Tail" in 1912, Malevich exhibited about 20 of his works. The works amazed with their expressiveness and bright colors. Compositionally and even anatomically, the images and the paintings themselves were completely insane. But Malevich created his own laws and was not going to deviate from them. Then he had a series of works on the theme of the peasantry, executed in his own invented technique of neo-primitivism.

Malevich's works are beginning to more and more resemble futuristic painting, which was called "Cubofuturism" or later "cubism".
In 1912, his painting “The Grinder (The Flickering Principle)” was published, which became classic example Cubo-futurism, Russian of course. Malevich also painted portraits in the same style (Portrait of Klyun, Portrait of Mikhail Matyushkin). Malevich in 1912 met Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin, big man in art. Subsequently, this acquaintance would develop into a great friendship, and it also influenced the work of Malevich himself.
In 1913, Malevich worked on the scenery for the futuristic opera play “Victory over the Sun.” In the same year he joined the Youth Union.
Despite Malevich's active work, lack of money was the main hindering factor. Sometimes there wasn’t even enough for drawing materials.
At one point, the artist discovers new facets of painting. The painting “The Cow and the Violin” became such a precursor. Through her, Malevich simply tore apart the old principles of established art. He even wrote the following words on the back of the picture: “An illogical comparison of two forms - “a cow and a violin” - as a moment of struggle with logic, naturalness, petty-bourgeois meaning and prejudices. K. Malevich.” At the St. Petersburg exhibition of 1913, his works were divided into two themes: Cubo-Futuristic Realism and Abstruse Realism.

In 1915, another important event occurred. The futuristic exhibition "Tram B" took place in Petrograd. Malevich exhibited 16 works there.
In 1915, one of Malevich’s most famous paintings, “Black Square,” appeared. It was something completely unusual, a black square on a white background. This idea came to Malevich when he was preparing the second edition of the brochure “Victory over the Sun” (it was not published). This drawing resulted in a whole direction, which Malevich later called “suprematism” (suprema - dominant, dominant).

On this occasion, Malevich wrote a small book, “From Cubism to Suprematism,” which was distributed at the vernissage.

On December 17, 1915, the last futuristic exhibition “0, 10” zero-ten took place at the Nadezhda Dobychina Art Bureau.

But Malevich’s friends did not support his idea of ​​Supremativism as the heir of Futurism. They were not ready to take on a completely new direction. In addition, artists forbade Malevich to call his paintings Supremitivism, either in catalogs or at exhibitions.

But Malevich stood his ground. He called his art "New Realism". Distinctive feature Suprematism was that the background of the picture was always a white environment. The image on a white background gave a feeling of depth of space, bottomlessness. Various geometric shapes were depicted against this background, using a pure color technique.

Malevich divided Suprematism into 3 stages: black, colored and white.

Black stage: These are the shapes of square, cross and circle. The painting "Black Square" is considered basic. "Black Cross" and "Black Circle" are therefore the next elements.

Color stage: started with the "Red Square". It's more complex compositions, a different combination of intricate geometric shapes.
White step: Malevich reached it in 1918. Now he has even removed color from his work.

After the October Revolution, Malevich held positions in the official bodies of the People's Commissariat of Education. Most of all, he was involved in the development of museums in Russia. He also started studying pedagogical activity, taught at the Moscow Free State Workshops.
In 1919, in July, went out a lot of work Malevich "On new systems in art." By this time, he had already moved to Moscow, leaving his pregnant wife in the Moscow region - a lack of funds forced him. Marc Chagall and Lazar Lissitzky helped him with his work.

In 1927, Malevich made the first trip abroad in his life. First it was Warsaw, then Berlin. Everywhere he performs personal exhibitions. Suddenly, Malevich abruptly leaves for the USSR after receiving a letter, the contents of which are unknown. He even leaves his paintings, planning to return in a year. Apparently then he had a vague premonition that when he left, he would leave a will for the paintings.

Arriving at his homeland, Malevich was arrested and kept in custody for several days. Friends somehow manage to rescue the artist. His paintings were also persecuted, fortunately, most survived, even after World War II under the Hitler regime.

For Malevich, the so-called stage of post-suprematism begins. The trip abroad gave him A New Look, new ideas, because before that he wanted to leave painting, believing that Suprematism was end point in this direction. New works appear. Among them is the painting "Girls in the Field", painted in 1912. The inscription “Supranaturilism” was written on the stretcher of the painting. Malevich in his new term combined the early concepts of “Naturalism” and “Suprematism”. He writes again on a peasant theme, only in a new style. Now the images of people have become faceless: instead of faces there are simply various ovals. The paintings contain more emotions, tragedy and at the same time heroism and greatness.

After 1927, Malevich often changed jobs. Work was not going well, I had to travel a lot. He even had to go to Kyiv to teach. In Ukraine they loved the artist, they even wrote about him in newspapers, a whole series of stories.

Turned 30 in 1928 creative work Malevich. He began preparing a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery. This turned out to be a large-scale and spectacular project.

In Kyiv in 1930, his personal exhibition took place, but it received harsh criticism. After this, Malevich was arrested again and sent to prison for several weeks.

In 1933 he was overtaken by incurable disease. Malevich died in 1935. He was buried, as he had bequeathed, in Nemchinovka near an oak tree. Bul has a monument in the form of a cube with a black square.