Painting "Black Square" by Malevich: the meaning of the picture, description

A hundred years ago, these two words acquired meaning, which does not give rest to the great multitude of people. The painting "Black Square" for any foreign art lover - the most famous Russian artwork - is the symbol of the idea, which for a long time outstripped the time even in the rapid XX century.

The artist of the epoch of cataclysms

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich lived his life, least of all similar to the fate of a clever charlatan from art, which set a goal to get rich on the sale of abstruse theories, the symbol of which is seen by many "experts" Malevich's painting "Black Square". He was born in 1879 in Kiev, in a large family of the manager of production at a sugar factory. The desire to draw was from childhood, but low prosperity did not allow to receive a systematic artistic education, forced early to start working life as a draftsman.

In Kursk, where the Malevich family moved, he organized a circle of lovers of painting and began to prepare for admission to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he tried unsuccessfully to enter in 1905 - he lacked formal education. Although Casimir was already a family man, he moved to Moscow, studied at the private school of the graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts, F.I. Rerberg, and actively participates in art associations, sometimes the most radical ones, such as the Jack of Diamonds, the Donkey's Tail , "The Blue Horseman", etc.

Search time

New time abolished the old values. The meaning of the pictorial function of pictorial art was lost, documenting the time took a picture and a born cinema, forcing artists to experiment with the form. Social and economic revolutions have made irrelevant the usual topics, actively influencing the search for new content of canvases.

Malevich lived in the thick of artistic life, experienced the influence of the most progressive trends: he painted impressionistic landscapes, participated in shocking futurist actions (for example, he walked along the Kuznetsky bridge with wooden spoons in buttonholes), painted Cubist paintings, developed his own style - "abstruse Realism ", issued the edition of the most avant-garde poets such as A. Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. Together with Mayakovsky released "Today's splint", reflecting the events of the First World War.

"Victory over the Sun"

Back in 1913, events took place that largely determined the creative destiny of Malevich. In St. Petersburg, the "First All-Russia Congress of Futurists" took place, in which three people took part: the inventor of the new language - "zaumi" - Alexei Kruchenykh, the music dissonance supporter Mikhail Matyushin and the active opponent of figurative painting Kazimir Malevich. The result of the inspired work was two performances of the opera "Victory over the Sun", which were included in the history of avant-garde art. It is from here that Malevich's painting "The Black Square" comes from - a similar motive appeared in the form of a backdrop in the scenery to the first action of the opera.

The main theme of the opera was the birth of a new, machine future, which can arise only when the old world is completely destroyed. This theme was embodied by non-professional actors in fantastic costumes according to Malevich's sketches, pronouncing an obscure but expressive "zaum", moving amidst amazing scenery to sharp atonal sounds extracted from the upset piano. The performances ended in a scandal, that is, the goal was achieved.

Exhibition "0.10"

Contemporaries noted Malevich's ability to unite artists around him, to generate unifying ideas. But even for his supporters, the exposition of 39 paintings prepared for the exhibition, which opened on December 19, 1915 in the gallery of N. Dobychina on the Field of Mars in Petrograd, was a complete surprise. The name "Zero, ten" meant zero of subject forms in the pictures and ten exhibitors (although there were 14 of them). It was on her first appeared picture "Black Square" - a photo captures it in the "red corner", where the icons usually were. The artist himself hung out pictures at night before the opening, wrote posters and signatures, prepared a manifesto "From Cubism to Suprematism. New picturesque realism. " Thus, he became the head of a new artistic trend, the symbol of which was the painting "Black Square". The exhibition was designated as "The Last Futuristic," but with the definition of it as a transition to Suprematism, as suggested by Malevich, his associates disagreed - too radical ideas were proclaimed by the artist.

Suprematism

The name comes from the Latin supremus - the highest - and Polish supremacja - superiority, supremacy. In the theoretical development of the new style, Malevich spoke of the dominance of non-objectivity as the determining quality of true visual art. Released from figurativeness, painting becomes an act of pure creation, similar to the divine, and the picture "Black Square" in this sense has the quality of the first-tier, the first element of the new world.
Another meaning of the term Malevich derives from the most important value for the new reality created the main tools that he uses - colors, lines, simple geometric shapes. The first Suprematist motifs, including the painting by Kazimir Malevich "The Black Square", had a special expressiveness based on laconic in color compositions, not distorted by the linear and air perspective, by imitation of volume, etc. In the future, the development of the basic principles took the form of influence on Different genres - suprematist became the compositions from the figures of people, there were even three-dimensional elements - "architectons", which became an expression of Malevich's views on the architecture of the future.

The basis of the new world created by the artist had one main expression - "Black Square". The meaning of the picture was determined by the value of the atom, from which the mapping of the existing world is not built, and the new, different reality, and the multifacetedness of this world gave ambiguity to the "Black Square". What is it?

Apotheosis of non-objectivity

Proclaiming the independence of truly pure art from the function of documenting the surrounding reality, the artist inevitably comes to the loss of any figurativeness, or to the search for the initial form, which can not be divided into constituent elements. This is the first element that Malevich found - the "Black Square". The meaning of the picture is that the impression produced by it does not depend on the semantic content, on associations with the objective world, on specific references and allusions. The task set by the master is not easy, it requires the participation of the viewer, the tension of his mental strength, the presence of some baggage. And most often it does not give explicit answers, but only a new way of getting impressions of being, but is not this the goal of art?

Color - the basis of new painting

The master named the full name of his most famous painting: "Black Suprematist Square on a White Background". For the artist and philosopher, every word was important here, because the primacy of color, its primacy lies at the heart of Suprematism. One can meet the description of the painting "Black Square" by Malevich, where the color of the paint applied to the canvas is a complex mixture of different shades, among which there is no unequivocally black, and the white frame is called the flickering of light cream shades.

It seems that it made sense for the master when he took further steps - in the famous series "white on white", when the expressiveness of painting is based on the subtlest color relationships between planes. The picture "Black Square" is a declaration of the dominant color, the most significant, significant, contrasting. Although the understanding of black as the result of mixing all the primary colors (warm and cold, spectral and additional), reinforces the importance of this declaration.

Energy and Light

No wonder the first mention of the black square is found in Malevich in his work on the design of the futuristic opera "Victory over the Sun". The description of the picture "Black Square", the explanation of the white background, on which the opaque dense figure is placed, as the light that beats because of the impending veil, meets both with the artist himself and with the audience, and especially organically in the context of the events taking place in the opera.

It's amazing how Malevich managed to predict the picturesque directions that became relevant after half a century. Ed Reinhardt, Saul Levitt, no doubt, walked along the path indicated by the "Black Square". In Mark Rothko, the energy of color and vibration of a laconic form acquires cosmic dimensions, and the means of expressing this energy are almost literally analogous to the Suprematist.

It is not known how important for Malevich was the man-made form, the light nonparallelism of the sides of the square, the ripple of the background and the flickering of black, but something makes one peer into this picture and every minute the mystic radiation from it becomes palpable.

The crisis of ideas, the end of art?

Trivializing the artistic genius with prophetic qualities is banal, but in the case of Malevich, the gift of foresight is obvious. Apocalyptic motifs that Malevich bestowed on the "Black Square" were also evident to contemporaries. The meaning of the picture was seen in a dead end, where art and especially painting, development of social thought started.

The habitual function of the fine arts was declared obsolete, and the square was seen as a natural result of the creative searches of formalists. No wonder there is a legend that, seeing the "Black Square", Picasso cooled to Cubism - there is nowhere else to move ... The war time and the clear premonition of future revolutionary upheavals did not add optimism.

And yet, from the top of the past tense in the slogans proclaimed by Malevich, one hears a call to seek new ways, and the rejection of the old methods of mapping the changing world does not seem to be a dominant. This was confirmed by the further creativity of the master and his students, the vitality of his ideas.

Reporting point

Malevich's canvas still excites dense commentators, who are excited by the name of the artist and the amount paid for the original painting - "critics" who have infantile virgin intellect. They are sure of the zero significance of such art. A black hole that absorbs the light matter of true artistic values is also seen by the highly educated guardians of spiritual traditions and moral norms.

Meanwhile, the name of Malevich is known to every future artist, designer or architect around the world, Suprematism has influenced the most famous contemporary artists. For example, the author of ultramodern forms in buildings and people's surroundings - Zaha Hadid - especially emphasizes the influence of the ideas of the Russian artist on all of her work.

What you need to write a picture of the "Black Square"

You can live a lifetime without thinking about a satiated comfortable life, looking at the world differently than others. Argue with friends and enemies, educate students, try to convince in their rightness state power and be in poverty and exile, die from a painful illness in yet not old age and turn your own funeral into an action of avant-garde art.

But why complicate? Canvas, a little paint and a minimum of painting skills, is ready to be a masterpiece of world significance. And even better - a computer graphics editor and a quality printer - it's so much smoother, more correct, more beautiful ... And most importantly - do not use unnecessary mental effort, because everything is so simple ...