Kazimir Malevich

Among the most famous artists in the world today, Kazimir Malevich is also known for his revolutionary and influential style of art. His work is characterized by his use of color, texture, and composition. His style is so unique that it sparked a revolution in the field of abstract art.

Kazimir Malevich

Early life

During his lifetime, Kazimir Malevich was one of the most famous artists in Russian modern art. He was born into a Polish family in Kiev, Ukraine. His parents were exiled from the former eastern territories of the Commonwealth, but settled near Kiev. They spoke Ukrainian in public. He started drawing at age twelve. He was educated in several art schools. He worked as an illustrator for Velimir Khlebnikov, and exhibited his works.

He married Kazimira Zgleits in 1899-1909. After their marriage, she left him. He married Natalia Malevich in 1927 until his death in 1935.

He was a member of two exhibition groups. He exhibited with Mikhail Larionov’s Knave of Diamonds, and with the Donkey’s Tail. He was a supporter of the 1917 Russian Revolution. He was also a supporter of Social Realism. He taught at the Kiev State Art Institute and the Leningrad Academy of Arts. He exhibited his paintings in Moscow. He participated in the first Union of Youth exhibition in 1911 and the second in St. Petersburg in 1912. He was also part of the Knave of Diamonds exhibition in 1917.

In 1915, Malevich began his Black Square painting, which became the most important abstract artwork in the history of Modern art. He was influenced by Pablo Picasso. His artworks incorporated Cubist and Futurist techniques. He used aerial landscapes as a starting point.

He later produced genre scenes. He also taught at the Kiev State Art Institute and the Vibetsk Practical Art School in Belarus. He continued to paint after 1917, and he was involved in the production of lithographs in honor of Russia during World War I. He was involved in the stage set design for the Victory Over the Sun opera.

Early art studies

Among the many artists who influenced Russian avant-garde painting, Kazimir Malevich is one of the most significant. During the early 1900s, Malevich studied a wide variety of art styles. His early art studies involved Impressionist-influenced landscapes and figure scenes. He later painted Eastern European folklore art, stoves, and portraits of friends. His paintings also showed increasing absorption of Western avant-garde influences.

After his father’s death in 1904, Malevich went to Moscow. There, he became a member of the UNOVIS group, which produced propaganda for the new regime. His artworks were confiscated. He was also barred from the art exhibitions.

After a brief period in the Soviet Union, Malevich began to focus on pure abstraction. He wrote a manifesto titled “From Cubism to Suprematism” in 1915. He was then joined by a new intellectual circle that included the writer Kruchenykh, composer M.V. Matyushin, and Mikhail Larionov.

These alliances brought Primitivist art theories into the light. They included the idea that art should transcend subject matter. He also believed that the true meaning of color and shape should take precedence over image. He believed that airplanes symbolized freedom and the awakening of the soul.

In his paintings, Malevich used figurative motifs, such as the Englishman in Moscow. However, he placed these motifs on a plain background. He also used overlappings and relationships. The result was a complex composition. He also used Cyrillic script.

In 1917, Malevich participated in a group exhibition of Russian avant-garde artists at the Moscow Knave of Diamonds gallery. He also exhibited his own paintings in Warsaw and Berlin. He died of cancer in Leningrad in 1935. He was buried in a coffin of his own design.

Suprematist philosophy

Often considered to be the first abstract art movement, Suprematism emerged in Russia in the early twentieth century. This school of modern art rejected the traditional notion of realism in painting. It is characterized by the use of geometric shapes on a white background. Malevich was the main figure in this movement. He developed the theoretical foundations of Suprematism. He wrote a book entitled The Non-Objective World.

In his later works, Malevich created levitating, depthless shapes on a white background. He referred to the white areas in his compositions as a “free white sea” of “infinity”. He also claimed that these areas were not empty.

Malevich used basic geometric forms as symbols in his paintings. He believed that the future of the universe would be built upon the foundations of absolute non-objectivity. He was influenced by the Futurist movement. He aimed to explore technological, futuristic and philosophical approaches to creating art. He also experimented with non-Euclidean geometry.

A key term in understanding Kazimir Malevich’s art is the concept of faktura. Faktura is defined as a shared idea in architecture, sculpture and other forms of art. This concept relates to the idea that the human face is mobile and expressive.

The Black Square was the first work by Malevich to introduce the circle of beginning and end. It also represents the transformation of consciousness. He viewed it as the first step in pure creation in art. He also called it the vanishing point.

Another significant concept in understanding Malevich’s art is the use of a variety of shapes to create depth in his compositions. These shapes were inspired by the stage designs for the Cubo-Futurist opera Victory Over the Sun. He also called them “abstract geometrization.”

Style of art

During the first two decades of the 20th century, Kazimir Malevich was one of the most influential artists in the Russian art scene. He was a pioneer of non-objective and abstract art. His works are characterized by the use of geometric shapes, often simplified to make them more legible. He was an important figure in the development of several artistic groups that explored Cubo-Futurism and Suprematism.

The most influential of his paintings is the Black Square, created in 1915. It became the central piece of the Suprematist art movement. The painting was so revolutionary that it carried the theories of the Suprematist school to their logical conclusion.

In addition to his Suprematist works, he also created paintings in a non-figurative style. These include Airplane Flying (1915) and Supremus No. 56 (1915-1916).

In 1912, he showed his work in Moscow. He had a successful show at the Sixteenth State Exhibition in Moscow. He also exhibited paintings in St. Petersburg. He was a member of Mikhail Larionov’s Jack of Diamonds exhibition collective. In 1927, he visited the Bauhaus in Germany, where he met Wassily Kandinsky. He chose to stay in Germany instead of moving to France, where the Bauhaus was located.

When the Soviet government decided to ban modern art, Malevich fell out of favor. He was accused of being bourgeois and was condemned for being anti-Soviet. He subsequently died of cancer in 1935. He is considered to be the godfather of abstract art. His paintings are regarded as a major influence on pop culture.

He was also a prolific writer. He wrote a manifesto in 1915, which outlined the theory of Suprematism. The manifesto explained that the art would be based on the supremacy of pure aesthetic feeling. He wrote about a “horizon-ring”, a concept that he believed was the zero of form. He also wrote about the value of the pure artistic feeling derived from the use of geometric shapes.

Visual themes

During the twentieth century, Kazimir Malevich was an important artist who participated in the development of many of the visual themes of Russian modern art. He drew on a wide range of artistic styles, including Cubism, Constructivism, and Social Realism. His trajectory through the revolution mirrored that of the Soviet Union. He was one of the first Russian artists to arrive at futurological conclusions. He published a manifesto entitled From Cubism to Suprematism in 1915. Throughout his life, Malevich had several teaching positions, as well as membership in the Narkompros group and the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment. He was forced to abandon modernist style under Stalin in the 1930s.

Malevich reinterpreted traditional folk motif Lubok. He also designed decorations for the performance of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s Misteriya-Buffa. His paintings are housed in various art museums across Russia. He was a member of the avant-garde movement.

The Woodcutter painting depicts a peasant with cylindrical forms, reminiscent of the Cubist art style. It is possible that the painter wished to express his hopes for a new world under Communism.

The artist’s palette consists of cool colors. He drew on his interest in aerial photography, as well as the motifs of familiar landscapes. His work is bled of color, which makes it easier to recognize signs of his work.

In the late 1920s, Malevich returned to a figurative style. He had been influenced by French Cubist Fernand Leger. He used a pictorial vocabulary of black squares to convey subject matter. In addition, he worked with Lyubov Popova in Verbovka village. He also served on commission for the protection of monuments.

In the early twentieth century, Malevich’s artistic style moved through Cubo-Futurism, Primitivism, and Impressionism. He had his first one-man show in Moscow in 1919. His paintings focused on elemental forms and formal analogies. He emphasized spiritual correspondences.