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

Russian and Soviet avant-garde artist, founder of Suprematism, creator of the famous Suprematist icon - “Black Square”.

early years

Kazimir Malevich was born on February 11 (old style - 23rd) 1879 in Kyiv into a family of immigrants from Poland. On March 1 (13), the child was baptized according to the Catholic rite. The generally accepted date was taken from the parish register of the Kyiv Church of St. Alexandra, however, some researchers insist on the reliability of another date - 1878.

The boy's father, Severin Antonovich, worked as a manager at Nikolai Tereshchenko's local sugar factory. Mother, Ludviga Alexandrovna, nee Galinovskaya, looked after the children. At home they spoke Polish, and subsequently Kazimir considered himself to be Poles, although in some questionnaires he wrote “Ukrainian” in the “nationality” column.

Malevich spent his childhood in Podolia, elementary education received at a five-year agricultural school. The family was forced to move frequently, as the father was constantly transferred from one plant to another.

At the age of 17, Malevich entered the Kyiv drawing school of N. I. Murashko. In his youth, he was interested in the work of the Itinerants and wrote a lot from life.

In 1896, the family moved to Kursk. Here Malevich hired himself to work as a draftsman at the Kursk-Moscow Administration railway, however, he did not give up painting. The ambitious young man even organized an art group in the city.

In 1898, Malevich married his namesake Kazimira Ivanovna Zgleits. The couple got married in the Kursk Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. In 1904, the artist decided to move to Moscow. Kazimira was strongly opposed, since she was left alone with the children, and in family life there was discord.

On August 5, 1905, Malevich applied for admission to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but was refused. Not wanting to return home, Malevich settled in the artistic commune in Lefortovo, located in spacious house artist Kurdyumov.

In the spring of 1906, Malevich had no money left even for a hostel, and he was forced to return to Kursk. In the summer, he re-applied to the school, but was again not accepted.

Moscow

In 1907, the artist’s mother moved to Moscow and ordered her son to move with her family. She rented a five-room apartment and rented a dining room on Tverskaya. Later the family was forced to move into furnished rooms in Bryusov Lane. The Malevichs quarreled again, and Kazimira, taking the children, left for Meshcherskoye, where she got a job as a paramedic in a psychiatric hospital.

Until 1910, Malevich took academic drawing and painting lessons in private studio F. I. Rerberg.

Malevich's debut occurred in 1907, when he took part inXIVexhibition of the Moscow Association of Artists. There he met the famous avant-garde artist, founder of the " Jack of Diamonds» Mikhail Larionov.

In 1909, Malevich divorced and remarried Sofya Mikhailovna Rafalovich. The bride's father owned a mansion in Nemchinovka - here the artist set up a studio for himself. Being self-taught, Malevich, on the one hand, was surprisingly well versed in avant-garde movements, on the other hand, he clearly couldn’t find a place for himself. For several years he rushed from one community to another, sometimes hostile to the previous one.

In 1910, Malevich took part in the group exhibition “Jack of Diamonds”, in February 1911 - in the exhibition of the Moscow Salon, in April-May - in the exhibition of the St. Petersburg Youth Union.

In 1912, the artist exhibited more than twenty paintings in the spirit of neo-primitivism at scandalous exhibition group "Donkey's Tail", which broke away from the "Knave of Diamonds". There he met the futurist and author of his own color theory, Mikhail Matyushin. The artists turned out to be like-minded people; friendship began.

In 1913, Malevich painted “screens” (backdrops) for the “First Evening of Speech Makers in Russia” in Moscow, and also spoke at the “Dispute about modern painting" In Petersburg. The St. Petersburg debate was chaired by Matyushin, Malevich behaved defiantly, shouting phrases like: “You, driving in your little cars, will not keep up with our futuristic car!”

Cooperation with futurists turned out to be the most fruitful. The artist designed a number of futuristic publications and took part in a group exhibition of the Target association. The artist characterized his paintings of that period as “abstruse realism” or “cubo-futuristic realism”,

In December, the premiere of Matyushin’s futuristic opera “Victory over the Sun” with lyrics by Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov took place at the Luna Park Theater in St. Petersburg, for which Malevich created the scenery and costume designs. This moment can be called a turning point for the artist, since, according to him, it was during the preparation for the performance that the idea of ​​“Black Square” was born.

In 1914, Malevich took part in a shocking action organized by Alexei Morgunov on the Kuznetsky Bridge. Artists walked around Moscow with wooden spoons in their buttonholes - in those days, a gesture was enough to excite passers-by.

With the onset of the First World War, Malevich turned to the book: he collaborated with the publishing house “Today's Lubok”, illustrated Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov.

In 1915 he exhibited at the “Tram B” exhibition in Petrograd.

Suprematism and "Supremus"

Kazimir Malevich is credited with creating one of the most influential movements in avant-garde art of the 20th century - Suprematism. Its origin can be dated back to 1915, when the manifesto “From Cubism to Suprematism” was published. New pictorial realism." It was published by Matyushin. In the same year, Malevich presented 39 paintings, which he called “Suprematist painting” as part of the exhibition “0.10”.

On January 1, 1916 (December 19, 1915, old style), one of the key events in art historyXXcentury - at the next exhibition “0.10” Malevich presented “Black Square” to the public. According to the artist’s plan, the square was to become part of the triptych, but its remaining parts – “Black Circle” and “Black Cross” – were demonstrated later and remained unnoticed.

During the first half of the year, Malevich managed to launch active popularization activities, making Suprematism the most important movement in the avant-garde. He organized the “Supremus” society, which included such painters as Olga Rozanova, Lyubov Popova, Alexandra Ekster, Ivan Klyun, Mstislav Yurkevich and others. He gave a report “Cubism - Futurism - Suprematism” at the “Public Scientific -a popular lecture by Suprematists." He demonstrated 60 new paintings at the next exhibition of the “Jack of Diamonds”, and fraudulently took part in the exhibition “Shop”, organized by Vladimir Tatlin. Tatlin forbade Malevich to exhibit Suprematist works, but he outwitted him by coming to the opening with the number “0.10” painted on his forehead and a homemade poster.

In the summer of the same year, the artist was drafted into the army. He ended up near Smolensk in the 56th reserve infantry regiment and was demobilized in 1917. By the summer, the first issue of the Supremus magazine was almost ready for publication, but on the eve of the revolution the ruble fell sharply, and prices for printing services soared to the impossible. In addition, his comrades abandoned the artist. I had to forget about the magazine.

In August, Malevich was appointed chairman of the art department of the Moscow Council of Soldiers' Deputies. After the revolution, he became Commissioner for the Protection of Ancient Monuments, as well as a member of the Commission for the Protection of artistic values. This did not come as a surprise to anyone: Malevich had long sympathized with the left and even participated in the barricade battles in 1905. However, in the spring of 1918, the artist bitterly noted in an article for the Anarchy newspaper: “A year has passed, but what have all the theater commissions and art departments done for art? Nothing".

In October 1917, Malevich was also elected chairman of the “Jack of Diamonds,” which caused fury among his eternal rival Tatlin and bewilderment among Popova and Udaltsova. They quarreled, as a result of which Supremus broke up.

Activities after the revolution

At the beginning of 1918, Malevich spoke at the scandalous Futurist debate “Fence Painting and Literature.”

In June 1918, Malevich was appointed Lunacharsky head of the museum section in the Department of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat for Education (IZO). Malevich began his work by writing a declaration of the artist's rights. Then he began to create a project for a giant center contemporary art: it was supposed to include artists’ workshops and homes. His crazy ideas were not allowed to come true, but he continued to advance career ladder: already in the fall he received a teaching position at the State Free Art Workshops (GSAM), which replaced the pre-revolutionary MUZHVZ and Stroganovka. Over the next year, the institution accepted everyone without exams.

In 1919, Malevich exhibited another cycle of works at the exhibition “Objectless Creativity and Suprematism” atX State exhibition. In November, the artist decided to move from the capital to Vitebsk.

Here he joined the teaching staff of the People's Art School of the “new revolutionary model”, headed by Marc Chagall. At the end of the year, Malevich’s essay “On New Systems in Art” was published. In December, the first lifetime retrospective exhibition of the Suprematist, “Kazimir Malevich. His path from impressionism to suprematism."

The artist, meanwhile, took a break and devoted himself entirely to teaching activities, began to write a lot, became interested in architecture. In 1920, a circle of devoted supporters from his students formed around him. Those included in it, L. Lisitsky, L. Khidekel, I. Chashnik and N. Kogan, founded the group UNOVIS (Advocates of New Art). When Malevich’s daughter was born, he named her Una in honor of the unification.

In 1922, Malevich completed the main theoretical work of his life - the theoretical and philosophical work “Suprematism. Peace as non-objectivity or eternal peace.” In Vitebsk, around the same time, his brochure “God will not be thrown off” was published. Art, church, factory."

In the same year, Malevich and several of his students went to Petrograd. The artist works at the local Museum of Artistic Culture, and at the same time exhibits at the First Russian art exhibition in Berlin.

In 1925, the second retrospective opened in Moscow, dedicated to the 25th anniversary creative activity artist. Malevich reads a report at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GANKh), draws sketches of the design of the Petrograd State Porcelain Factory.

In the period from 1924 to 1926, Malevich served as director of the Leningrad State Institute of Artistic Culture (GINKHUK) and headed the formal theoretical department. There I also read the report “Left movements in Russian painting over 15 years.”

Malevich's passion for architecture, once inspired by the quests of El Lissitzky, grew into something more: he created the concept of architectons - picturesque architectural suprematist models. The artist became a member of the Association of Contemporary Architects (OSA) and presented his ideas at the annual reporting exhibition of GINKHUK. On June 10, 1926, after the publication of G. Sery’s article, GINKHUK was closed with a scandal and completely liquidated.

In 1927, Malevich married for the third time, and Natalya Andreevna Manchenko turned out to be his new passion. He lived with her for the rest of his life at 2/9 Soyuz Svyazi Street, apt. 5.

In the spring, the artist went on a long business trip to Poland and then to Germany. He visited the Great Berlin Art Exhibition and the Bauhaus in Dessau, where he met Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy.

In 1928, Malevich returned to easel painting. Working at the Moscow State Institute of Art History and at the same time preparing for the next exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery, the artist began restoring his early works from memory. Thus, the paintings of the “Impressionist period”, the “peasant cycle” and the third version of the “Black Square” were recreated. The latter had to be written again at the request of the management, since the original was already in a deplorable state.

Color symbolism

In the words of Malevich himself, “suprematist philosophical color thinking” is put at the forefront by the artist. The Suprematist painter must abandon narrative and the principle of mimesis (imitation, realistic reproduction of the surrounding world) and, discarding old forms, create something new using only color and the simplest geometric elements.

For Malevich, color becomes not just a key tool, but a full-fledged, independent pictorial unit. The relationship between form and color is hierarchical: if color is the power of the first row, then form performs applied functions.

The artist left great amount theoretical works, in which he provides a rationale for Suprematism and his color theory. Striving for “pure painting,” Malevich assigned a decisive role to color: “Suprematism in one of its stages has a purely philosophical cognitive movement through color, and in the second - as a form that can be applied, forming a new style Suprematist decoration."

Particular attention should be paid to the color palette of Suprematism. Red, black and white - the archetypal color triad - are designed to perform ontological functions. “The most important thing in Suprematism is two foundations - the energies of black and white, which serve to reveal the form of action.” Three Suprematist squares are Malevich’s ideological guidelines: “black as a sign of economy, red as a signal of revolution and white as pure action.”

Exploring the mechanisms of perception, Malevich comes to the conclusion that the Suprematist canvas should be white, because this color awakens the feeling of infinity. The artist’s most often quoted thesis from the program manifesto “Suprematism” sounds like this: “I conquered the lining of the colored sky, tore it off and put colors into the resulting bag and tied it in a knot. Swim! White free abyss, infinity before you.” The white canvas signifies the transition from emotions to “white as the true real representation of infinity,” the transition to pure Cognition.

As an apologist for non-objective painting, Malevich was extremely concerned about the problem of the relationship between color and form. A short article “Form, Color and Feeling” (1928) was written on this topic. This is another work about Suprematism and new art, subject to the requirement to convey “sensations of forces developing in the psychophysiological areas of human existence.” Suprematism expresses these feelings through simple geometric forms, cleared of semantic layers, grouped into strict compositions. As for the choice of a suitable color for these forms, Malevich argues that it should be arbitrary, depending only on the will of the artist. Taking into account the hypothesis that each shape has its own color, he still encourages making choices intuitively. Numerous experiments conducted by him personally showed that a certain shape evokes associations with the same color in most subjects. But, as Malevich rightly noted, in the context of a painting, colors and forms are perceived not in isolation from each other, but together; they are subordinated to general dynamics, perform one specific task, and realize the artist’s plan. Both color and form follow feelings and sensations; Malevich’s painting is not a means, but the content itself.

Sunset of life

On September 20, 1930, Malevich was arrested: he was charged with Article 58, paragraph 6 – espionage. He remained in custody for almost three months and was released only on December 6. He faced a prison term of up to three years, and if espionage was recognized as “harmful to the interests of the USSR”), then execution. A small amount of foreign currency, preserved from the time of his business trip, and several letters were confiscated from the artist.

In 1932, Malevich was working on a project for the painting “Social City,” which was never realized. From this moment on, the degradation of the artist becomes obvious. He participates in opportunistic events and paints portraits in the spirit of socialist realism. In 1933, Malevich was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

In 1935, a few months before his death, the last show of the artist’s works in his homeland took place - the next one would take place only in 1962.

Death and significance for world culture

Kazimir Malevich died on May 15, 1935 in Leningrad after a long, painful illness. According to the artist’s will, his body was placed in a “Suprematist coffin” made in the shape of a cross. He was transported to Moscow, cremated at the Donskoy Crematorium, and the urn with his ashes was buried under the artist’s favorite oak tree not far from the village of Nemchinovka. A monument with the image of a black square is erected above the grave.

During the war, the grave was lost and it is not possible to find its exact location. Already during the war, an arable field appeared in its place, so today the memorial sign is located on the edge of the forest, two kilometers from the original burial.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Malevich for world art. Along with Kandinsky, Kupka, Mondrian, he is recognized as one of the founders of abstract art, the founder of non-figurative, non-figurative painting. He influenced subsequent generations of artists of completely different directions; he can be considered one of the forerunners of actionism, minimalism, conceptualism, etc.

The famous “Black Square” was considered lost for some time and was discovered in Samara in 1993. It was purchased by Inkombank for 250000 dollars. In April 2002, the painting was bought and given to the Hermitage by Vladimir Potanin.

On November 3, 2008, “Suprematist Composition” (1916) by Malevich went under the auction hammerSotheby’ sfor a record 60 million dollars.

Azimir Malevich painted in different styles: neo-primitivism, impressionism, alogism and cubism. However, none of them reflected his view of reality, so Malevich developed a new direction - Suprematism. Later, the ideas of Suprematism began to be used not only in painting, but also in other areas - design, architecture, cinema.

Experiments of a young artist: cubo-futurism and “paintings in a primitive spirit”

Kazimir Malevich with his wife Natalya Manchenko. Photo: lavender.media

Kazimir Malevich was born in 1878 (according to other sources - in 1879) in Kyiv. His father worked at sugar factories far from big cities, so Malevich spent his childhood in Ukrainian villages. The picturesque nature and color of rural life inspired the boy and influenced his work in the future. “Peasants, young and old, worked on the plantations almost all summer and autumn, and I, future artist, admired the fields and the “colored” workers,”- Malevich recalled.

In 1889, his father took Kazimir Malevich to the annual sugar fair in Kyiv. Here the boy first saw paintings. After the trip, Malevich began to draw. However, the father did not support this hobby: he wanted his son to continue the family business, and sent him to an agronomic school in the village of Parkhomovka. His mother, on the contrary, encouraged the pursuit of art and even bought paints for Casimir. Later, 17-year-old Malevich entered the Kyiv drawing school of artist Nikolai Murashko, where he studied for a year.

The thought of Moscow began to worry me greatly, but there was no money, and the whole mystery was in Moscow, nature was everywhere, and the means to paint it were in Moscow, where famous artists also lived... I summed up the monetary base, and according to according to my calculations I should have had enough for a whole academic year, in the spring I will come to Kursk and start working. I'm going. It was 1904.

Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich. Shroud (fragment). 1908. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Kazimir Malevich. Gardener (fragment). 1911. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Kazimir Malevich. Landscape with a yellow house (fragment). 1906. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

In the summer of 1905, Malevich submitted documents to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but he was not accepted. He came from Kursk to enroll in school two more times, in 1906 and 1907, all to no avail.

In 1907, Kazimir Malevich finally moved from Kursk to Moscow. He began attending Fyodor Rerberg's studio school, where he studied the history of painting and tried new artistic techniques. In search of his own style, the artist imitated the drawing styles of famous masters. At this time, he created several paintings on religious themes: “Sketches fresco painting" and "Shroud" - and paintings in the impressionist style "Portrait of an unknown woman from the artist's family" and "Landscape with a yellow house (Winter landscape)." After the first exhibition of the association “Jack of Diamonds” in 1910, Malevich painted his first avant-garde paintings: “Bather”, “Gardener”, “Call operator in the bathhouse” and “Scrubbers”.

Kazimir Malevich. Peasant woman with buckets and a child (fragment). 1912. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Kazimir Malevich. Morning after a blizzard in the village (fragment). 1912. Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA

Kazimir Malevich. Harvesting rye (fragment). 1912. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

During the same period, Malevich created the first peasant series. The early paintings of this cycle - “The Reaper”, “Mower”, “Peasant Woman with Buckets and Child”, “Harvesting Rye” - were created by the artist in the spirit of neo-primitivism. The figures of the peasants were deliberately enlarged, distorted and simplified. The final works of the peasant series - “Woman with Buckets”, “Morning after a Blizzard in the Village”, “Head of a Peasant Girl” - were written by Malevich in a cubo-futurist style. The silhouettes of the villagers in these compositions formed numerous repetitions of geometric shapes.

I remained on the side of peasant art and began to paint pictures in a primitive spirit. At first, in the first period, I imitated icon painting. The second period was purely “labor”: I painted peasants at work, harvesting, threshing. Third period: I moved closer to the “suburban genre” (carpenters, gardeners, summer cottages, bathers). The fourth period is “city signs” (polishers, maids, footmen, office workers).

Kazimir Malevich

Malevich Square: Suprematist paintings

Kazimir Malevich. Supremus No. 56 (fragment). 1916. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Kazimir Malevich. Black Suprematist square. 1915. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Kazimir Malevich. White on white (fragment). 1917. Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

A few years later, Malevich joined the St. Petersburg creative association of Russian avant-garde artists “Youth Union”. The artist's financial situation at this time was deplorable: sometimes there was not enough money even for canvas - then he used furniture. On three shelves of the bookcase, the artist painted the canvases “Toilet Box”, “Non-Stop Station”, “Cow and Violin”. The artist painted the first two works in the spirit of cubo-futurism, and the third in a style that he called “alogism.” This painting became a protest against the traditional logic of art. The master combined in one canvas essences that, according to the laws classical painting were incompatible: a cow and a violin. He emphasized color, lines and their interaction with each other.

In the same year, Kazimir Malevich designed the opera “Victory over the Sun”. The futuristic play was staged by the Youth Union. Malevich thought over the lighting, created the scenery and costume designs. He recalled that while working on the play he even came up with new revolutionary paintings.

In 1915, at the First Futurist exhibition of paintings “Tram B”, Malevich presented 16 works. Most of them were classic Cubo-Futurist paintings - “Lady at a Poster Pole”, “Lady on a Tram”, “Sewing Machine”. But on one of them, “Composition with the Mona Lisa” (the painting received its name later), features of a new style already appeared: deep White background, colored geometric shapes and their special arrangement relative to each other.

After this exhibition, Kazimir Malevich began to prepare for the next one. He developed his new style of abstractions: non-objective color figures on a white background. This artistic movement was called Suprematism by Kazimir Malevich, together with Velimir Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh, which translated meant “superiority”.

Malevich described the foundations of Suprematism in the brochure “From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism." In it he proclaimed the transition “towards a new pictorial realism, non-objective creativity” and emphasized the dominance of color over other aspects of painting. According to Malevich, the master should not have copied nature, but created his own art worlds. Malevich took three figures as a basis - a square, a cross and a circle. On these first forms he built all subsequent Suprematist paintings.

Kazimir Malevich. Lady on a tram (fragment). 1913. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Kazimir Malevich. Lady at the poster pole (fragment). 1914. Stedelek City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Kazimir Malevich. Compositions with the Mona Lisa (fragment). 1915-1916. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The artist presented canvases in the new style in 1916 at the Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings “0.10” - along with his brochure. The exhibition included paintings “Lady”, “Self-Portrait in Two Dimensions”, “Pictorial Realism of a Football Player - Colorful Masses in the Fourth Dimension”. The central work was “Black Quadrangle” (later “Black Square”).

Participants in the exhibition reacted very sharply to Malevich’s revolutionary works: they forbade the artist to declare this direction one of the movements of futurism.

A black square in a white frame is not simple joke, not a simple challenge, not a random little episode that happened in a house on the Champs de Mars, but this is one of the acts of self-affirmation of that principle, which has the abomination of desolation as its name and which prides itself on the fact that it is through pride, through arrogance, through the trampling of everything loving and tender, will lead everyone to death.

Alexander Benois

The author himself answered the adherents traditional art So: “For those accustomed to basking in a cute face, it is difficult to warm up in the face of a square”. He spoke about his paintings as "healthy form of Art", which cannot be assessed by criteria "like" or "I do not like". In 1919, the artist’s first personal exhibition “Kazimir Malevich. His path from impressionism to suprematism." He identified three stages in Suprematism: black, colored and white. At the first stage, the artist explored the relationship of forms, at the next - colors, at the last - textures. The “Black” period was represented by the triptych “Black Square”, “Black Cross” and “Black Circle”. The “color” period began with “Red Square” and ended with the paintings “Supremus No. 56”, “Supremus No. 57” and “Supremus No. 58”. The “white” period of Suprematism was marked by a series of “white on white” canvases. He moved to Vitebsk and in 1919 wrote the first major theoretical work “On New Systems in Art”, and three years later - the treatise “Suprematism. The world is like non-objectivity.”

Soon the artist had followers. Together with them, Malevich created a “new party in art” - UNOVIS (Approvers of New Art). The association included Lev Yudin, Lazar Lisitsky, Nikolai Suetin, Vera Ermolaeva, Nina Kogan. Together they decorated city holidays, designed furniture and dishes, painted posters and signs - created "utilitarian world of things" in the style of Suprematism. However, the association of avant-garde artists did not last long - until 1922. Soon Soviet art took an anti-avant-garde course, and working conditions deteriorated sharply. From Vitebsk, Malevich and some of his students moved to Petrograd.

In 1927, the artist went to Europe - an exhibition of his paintings was held there. This was Malevich's first and last trip abroad: he soon received an order from the Soviet government to return to his homeland. When the artist returned to the USSR, he was accused of espionage and arrested. They were released home only after three weeks. Immediately after his release, he began preparing for a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery: for it, the artist had to re-paint his paintings, since most remained abroad.

Over time, the persecution of Kazimir Malevich only intensified: after a personal exhibition in Kyiv in 1930, he was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and arrested. This time the artist spent three months in prison. After his release, Malevich completed the second, peasant cycle paintings in the post-suprematist style - the author himself called it "suprematism within human figure» . On the canvases, the figures of peasants were flat and positioned frontally, and instead of faces there was white or black emptiness. On the back of one of the works the author wrote: “The composition was made up of elements, a feeling of emptiness, loneliness, hopelessness of life”.

In 1932, the work of Kazimir Malevich entered into crucial moment- He began to paint mainly portraits. The paintings combined the traditions of Suprematism, Russian icons and the Renaissance. The paintings “Head” belong to this period modern girl", "Working woman", "Portrait of the artist's wife: Natalya Andreevna Malevich, née Manchenko", "Self-portrait". Instead of a signature, the master drew a black square on them.

Kazimir Malevich died in 1935. The artist’s body was cremated, and the ashes were buried in the village of Nemchinovka near Moscow.

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 the technical department of the 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, formed into a composition filled with a certain meaning that shames the ordinary mind with its incomprehensibility (“Lady at a Tram Stop”, 1913; “Aviator”, “Composition with the 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 the word “suprematia” in the artist’s native language, Polish, which translated meant “supremacy”, “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, for the first time, he showed 39 paintings under the general title “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 Art section 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 the work on the decorative decoration of Moscow for the May 1st holiday. 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, led 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. As part of the experimental work of the institute, he conducted analytical research and developed his 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 (8-29 March) and Berlin (29 March - 5 June). 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 of 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 last period 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, 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

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (1879 - 1935), famous Russian and Soviet artist, worked in such painting styles as cubism and avant-garde, art theorist. Considered the founder of one of the most powerful phenomena in abstract art, which became known as Suprematism - the expression of the entire structure of the universe through geometric shapes and lines. Malevich's paintings, with their titles, give a complete idea of ​​his understanding of reality, unique technology performance and personal attitude towards fine arts, are presented below according to the years of their creation.

The beginning of the way

Kazimir Malevich was born in Kyiv, into a Polish large family. He had four brothers and four sisters. His entire childhood was spent in the village. In 1895 - 1896 he attended classes at the Kyiv Drawing School. The first painting was painted by the artist at the age of 16, and then sold in a store by one of his friends for 5 rubles. He repeatedly tried to enter the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but all three attempts ended unsuccessfully. Each time he was forced to return and continue working as a draftsman in the management of the Kursk Railway. In 1907, Ludviga Alexandrovna, the artist’s mother, rented a large apartment in Moscow. Kazimir Malevich gets the opportunity to communicate with like-minded people and create his paintings in the capital.

The artist begins his creative path with naturalism. But then he quickly became interested in impressionism, futurism and cubism. Even these very avant-garde painting styles did not give Kazimir Malevich the opportunity to tell the whole world about what overwhelmed him. philosophical reflections and thoughts about further development contemporary art. He soon realizes that it is necessary to create another direction in painting - Suprematism, in which only form and color were important.

A small selection of paintings by the artist

There are artists whose paintings’ subjects are clear to most of their admirers at first sight. And Malevich encourages viewers to think about their creations and sometimes even rethink them. There is a lot of talk and debate about Malevich’s paintings, but it has long been clear to everyone that these are the works of a man who sharply advanced avant-garde and abstract art to the heights of art and created a new direction on their basis.

The painting was created in 1913. At that time, the artist and his family rented a dacha near Nemchinovka, which was much cheaper than renting a Moscow apartment. This work by Kazimir Malevich is very unusual. And first of all, because it was written on an ordinary wooden tablet, which used to be part of a shelf. Even holes and traces of fastenings were preserved on it. But the artist could not afford to buy high-quality canvas at that time; he simply did not have the money.

In the painting, K. Malevich expresses his attitude to the accepted standards characteristic of the art of that time. In music, literature and painting, certain rules had to be strictly followed, and the artist promoted freedom. For Malevich, the most important and important thing in his work was the “law of contrasts,” which he also called “the moment of struggle.” This concept was formed in his cubo-futurist period of creativity. With the help of such contrasting images he tried to shake the established dogmas of art. He spoke to his students about the alogism and comparison of two forms - a violin and a cow against the backdrop of a cubist building. The artist divided many of his works of that period into “Abstract Realism” and “Cubo-Futuristic Realism.” This indicated that K. Malevich saw his goal in a reality that was beyond the boundaries of objective illusoryness.

The painting was created in 1915 and is part of a series of other Suprematist works by K. Malevich. For many years it has been one of the most discussed paintings in Russian art.

The history of the creation of this painting began with K. Malevich’s work as an artist on sketches of scenery and costumes for the production of M. V. Matyushin’s opera “Victory over the Sun.” Then, for the first time, the image of a black square appeared, which symbolized the victory of human creativity over the passive form of nature; it replaced the solar circle.

K. Malevich, based on the fact that preliminary sketches for “Black Square” were made in 1913, also dated the work. But he did not attach any importance to the actual date of creation of his masterpiece. Presumably, it was completed by the artist on June 21, 1915. He created several Suprematist paintings for an exhibition that opened in St. Petersburg at the end of the same year at the Dobychina Art Bureau:

• “Black Square” was considered the first step of creativity in its purest form.
• The “black circle” is one of the main elements of the plastic system he discovered.
• “Black cross” - transformation of a square into other planes.

At this exhibition they represented three important components of the Suprematist system. These were the three standards. On their basis, new forms were to be born.

The canvas of the painting, whose size is 79.5 cm by 79.5 cm, was tried to be examined several times. The results were made public in 2015. It is discovered that there are two more color images under the top layer. The inscription belonging to the author was also recognized. The phrase “Battle of Negroes in a Dark Cave” redirects to the painting by Alphonse Allais “Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night,” 1882. Historians and art historians believe that these finds will help to imagine the entire process of painting this painting. It will be interesting for many to know that the square was originally specified as a quadrilateral. He did not have strict right angles. This expressed the artist’s desire to create such a mobile and dynamic form.

In his works, Kazimir Malevich showed himself to be a wonderful impressionist. The painting “Summer Landscape” was painted by him in 1928 - 1929. The influence of realism is noticeable in it. In this work, the artist used to express his idea and compositional solution strokes of different textures and sizes. The overall range is close to the real colors of nature, filled various shades soft green color.

The plot of the film is quite simple. Almost in the center of the picture is a small female figure in a white dress. There is a table not far from the spreading tree. A path leads to a house with white walls, and in the background, in the distance, buildings are visible. And everything is literally buried in summer greenery, permeated with air and sunlight. There are no ideas of Suprematism in the picture. Malevich seems to remember the distant years of childhood spent in the village, and does not overload it with any special philosophical meaning.

The artist worked on this painting in 1928 - 1930. Her color scheme complements and emphasizes the geometric shapes of variegated and provocative shades. The background of the picture is built from planes, color combinations which can be called quite harsh. In the center is a woman, to depict whose figure Malevich used only two colors: black and white. In this way he completely depersonalized the rough and gloomy image. The artist uses this technique in order to show the mass character, sameness and insignificance of all life. The hopelessness and hard, backbreaking work of peasant women is the main idea of ​​this work. But the author invites viewers to reflect on this picture and draw their own conclusions.

For many art connoisseurs, Malevich’s paintings (photos with titles) can explain the process of personal development of the great reformer. He emphasized that the philosophy of Suprematism would allow the artist to bring art to himself.

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

The most famous work of 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 abstract art, Suprematism was expressed in combinations of multi-colored planes of the simplest geometric shapes devoid of pictorial meaning. Suprematist works occupied a separate exhibition hall. 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 a compass and ruler, but drew an elementary geoform “by eye”, and became familiar with its inner meaning through 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 was exhibited, entitled “Battle of the Negroes in deep cave dark night."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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