Black square history of the painting. The original title of the painting was found under Malevich’s “black square”

A hundred years ago, these two words acquired a meaning that haunts a great many people.

The painting “Black Square” for any foreign art lover is the most famous Russian piece of art, is a symbol of an idea that was long ahead of its time even in the rapid 20th century.

Artist of the Age of Cataclysms

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich lived a life that was least like fate clever charlatan from art, which set the goal of getting rich by selling abstruse theories, the symbol of which is seen by many “experts” in Malevich’s painting “Black Square”. He was born in 1879 in Kyiv, into a large family of a production manager at a sugar factory. The desire to draw was with childhood, but low income did not allow receiving systematic art education, forced to start early working life as a draftsman.

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

Search time

New times abolished old values. The meaning of the pictorial function was lost pictorial art, photography and the emerging cinema began documenting the time, forcing artists to experiment with form. Social and economic revolutions made familiar themes irrelevant, actively influencing the search for new content in paintings.

Malevich lived in the thick of it artistic life, was influenced by the most advanced trends: he painted impressionistic landscapes, participated in shocking actions of the futurists (for example, he walked along the Kuznetsky Bridge with wooden spoons in his buttonholes), painted paintings in the style of cubism, developed his own style - “abstruse realism”, designed the publications of the most avant-garde poets such as A. Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. Together with Mayakovsky, he published “Today’s popular print,” which reflected the events of the outbreak of the First World War.

"Victory over the Sun"

Back in 1913, events took place that largely determined creative destiny Malevich. The “First All-Russian Congress of Futurists” took place in St. Petersburg, in which three people took part: the inventor of the new language - “zaumi” - Alexey Kruchenykh, a supporter of musical dissonance Mikhail Matyushin and an active opponent of figurative painting Kazimir Malevich. The result of this inspired work was two performances of the opera “Victory over the Sun,” which went down in the history of avant-garde art. It is from here that Malevich’s painting “Black Square” comes from - a similar motif appeared in the form of a backdrop in the scenery for the 1st act of the opera.

The main theme of the opera was the birth of a new, machine future, which can only arise with the complete destruction of the old world. This theme was embodied by non-professional actors in fantastic costumes based on Malevich’s sketches, who uttered an obscure but expressive “zaum”, moving among amazing scenery to the sharp atonal sounds extracted from the performances ended in scandal, i.e. the goal was achieved.

Exhibition "0.10"

Contemporaries noted Malevich's ability to unite artists around himself and generate unifying ideas. But even for his like-minded people, the exhibition of 39 paintings prepared for the exhibition, which opened on December 19, 1915 in the N. Dobychina gallery in Petrograd, was a complete surprise. The title “Zero, Ten” meant zero object forms in the paintings and ten participants in the exhibition (although there were 14). It was on it that the painting “Black Square” first appeared - the photo captured it in the “red corner”, where icons were usually located.

The artist himself hung the paintings the night before the opening, wrote posters and signatures, and prepared the manifesto “From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism." Thus he became the head of the new artistic movement, the symbol of which was the painting “Black Square”. The exhibition was designated as “The Last Futurist,” but his colleagues did not agree with its definition as a transition to Suprematism, as Malevich proposed; the artist proclaimed too radical ideas.

Suprematism

The name comes from the Latin supremus - highest - and Polish supremacja - superiority, supremacy. In the theoretical developments of the new style, Malevich spoke about the dominance of non-objectivity as the defining quality of true fine art. Freed from figurativeness, painting becomes an act of pure creation, similar to the divine, and the painting “Black Square” in this sense has the quality of a first cell, the primary element of a new world.

The foundation of a new world created by the artist had one main expression - “Black Square”. The meaning of the picture was determined by the meaning of the atom from which the display is built existing world, and a new, different reality, and the versatility of this world gave ambiguity to the “Black Square”. What is she wearing?

Apotheosis of pointlessness

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 an initial form that cannot be separated into its component elements. This is the primary element that Malevich found - “Black Square”. The meaning of the picture is that the impression it makes does not depend on semantic content, on associations with the object world, on specific references and allusions. The task set by the master is not easy, it requires the participation of the viewer, his tension mental strength, the presence of some baggage. And most often it does not give explicit answers, but only indicates new way receiving impressions from existence, but isn’t this the goal of art?

Color is the basis of new painting

Full name of itself famous painting the master designated it this way: “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 basis of Suprematism. You can find a description of the painting “Black Square” by Malevich, where the color of the paint applied to the canvas appears to be a complex mixture various shades, among which there is no clearly black, and the white frame is called the shimmer of light cream shades.

It seems that this made sense for the master when he took further steps - in the famous “white on white” series, when the expressiveness of painting is built on the subtlest color relationships between planes. The painting “Black Square” is a declaration of the dominant color, the most significant, significant, and contrasting. Although understanding it as a result of mixing all primary colors (warm and cool, spectral and complementary), strengthens the meaning of this declaration.

Energy and light

It is not for nothing that the first mention of the black square was found in Malevich’s work on the design of the futuristic opera “Victory over the Sun.” The description of the painting “Black Square”, the explanation of the white background on which an opaque dense figure is placed, as light shining from behind an approaching curtain, is found both in the artist himself and in the audience, and is especially organic in the context of the events taking place in the opera.

It’s amazing how Malevich managed to predict picturesque directions that became relevant half a century later. Ad Reinhardt and Sol LeWitt undoubtedly followed the path indicated by Black Square. In Mark Rothko, the energy of color and vibration of a laconic form acquires cosmic proportions, and the means of expressing this energy are almost literally similar to the Suprematist.

It is not known how important the hand-made form, the slight non-parallelism of the sides of the square, the pulsation of the background and the flickering of black color were for Malevich, but something makes you look closely at this picture and with every minute the mystical radiation from it becomes more noticeable.

Crisis of ideas, end of art?

It is trite to attribute prophetic qualities to an artistic genius, but in the case of Malevich the gift of foresight is obvious. The apocalyptic motifs that Malevich endowed with “Black Square” were also obvious to contemporaries. They saw the meaning of the picture as a dead end to which art, especially painting, and the development of social thought had led.

The usual function of fine art was declared obsolete, and the square was seen as a logical result of the creative searches of the formalists. It is not for nothing that there is a legend that, having seen the “Black Square”, Picasso lost interest in cubism - there was nowhere to move further... What had already happened did not add optimism war time and a clear premonition of future revolutionary upheavals.

And yet, from the top of the past, in the slogans proclaimed by Malevich, one can hear a call to look for new ways, and the denial of old methods of displaying the changing world does not seem dominant. This has been confirmed further creativity the master and his students, the vitality of his ideas.

Reference point

Malevich’s canvas still excites dense commentators who are excited by the artist’s name and the amount paid for the original painting - “critics” who have an infantile virgin intellect. They are confident in the zero significance of such art. absorbing the light matter of the true artistic values, is also seen by highly educated guardians of spiritual traditions and moral norms.

Meanwhile, the name of Malevich is known to every future artist, designer or architect all over the world; Suprematism influenced the most famous modern masters. For example, the author of ultra-modern forms in buildings and the human environment - Zaha Hadid - especially emphasizes the influence of the ideas of the Russian artist on all her work.

What is needed to paint the painting “Black Square”

You can live your whole life without thinking about a well-fed, comfortable life, and look at the world differently than others. argue with friends and enemies, educate students, try to convince you that you are right state power and find yourself in poverty and exile, die from a painful illness at a not yet old age and turn your own funeral into an event of avant-garde art.

But why complicate things? A canvas, a little paint and a minimum of painting skills - a masterpiece of world significance is ready. And even better - computer graphics editor and a high-quality printer - it’s smoother, more correct, more beautiful... And the most important thing is not to make unnecessary mental efforts, because everything is so simple...

Specialists Tretyakov Gallery discovered that Kazimir Malevich's 1915 painting "Black Square" was painted on a canvas that previously contained two images. In addition, art historians were able to read the author’s inscription on the painting.

“It was known that under the Black Square there was some underlying image. We found out that there are not one, but two such images.

And they proved that the original image is a cubo-futurist composition, and that lying under the “Black Square,” the color of which you see in the craquelure, is a proto-Suprematist composition,” Ekaterina Voronina, a researcher at the State Tretyakov Gallery’s department of scientific expertise, told the Kultura TV channel.

She also reported that, together with her colleagues Irina Rustamova and Irina Vakar, she managed to decipher the inscription on the “Black Square,” which is considered the author’s.

The inscription reads: “The battle of the blacks in the dark cave.”

This phrase refers to the title of the painting by the French journalist, writer and artist Alphonse Allais “The Battle of the Negroes in a Dark Cave” late at night", written in 1882 and representing a completely black rectangle.

“Malevich has a complex, intricate handwriting and some letters are written the same way: “n”, “p” and even “i” in some texts are very close in spelling. We are working on the second word. But you can all see in the exhibition that the first word is “Battle,” Voronina explained.

“Black Square” is the most mythologized work of fine art of the 20th century. His interpretations are innumerable. One thing is certain: the painting is perceived as an aesthetic manifesto of an entire generation of artists and as a symbol of the most important aesthetic era.

Malevich himself answered questions about the meaning and meaning of “Square”, as they say, evasively. He said that he himself did not expect such an effect and did not quite clearly understand what all this could mean.

These words prompted some researchers to think about the supernatural, mystical origin of the pictorial symbol.

However, it is believed that the image of a black square first appeared in Malevich’s works in 1913 in sketches of the scenery for the production of the futuristic opera “Victory over the Sun” by Mikhail Matyushin and Alexei Kruchenykh. In 1915, the square was presented in the form of a completed painting along with other geometric works, which, in general, marked the emergence of a new artistic direction- Suprematism.

The works were first published at the futuristic exhibition “0, 10”, which opened in St. Petersburg on December 19, 1915.

Malevich’s Suprematist paintings occupied a separate room there, and “Black Square” hung in the so-called red corner - the place in the room where icons were kept in Russian huts.

The latter circumstance was perceived by many critics and journalists as a challenge and an undermining moral principles. Subsequently, many skeptics tried to explain “Black Square” pragmatically - by saying that the artist wrote something on the canvas, it didn’t work out, and he painted over the image as it came to his mind at that moment.

This bold hypothesis, however, is contradicted by the fact that Malevich repeatedly made original repetitions of “Square”. Today we know of four repetitions: two are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, one in the Russian Museum, and one more in the Hermitage.

Thus, apparently, the current discovery of art historians from the Tretyakov Gallery is important for the history of Malevich’s masterpiece, but adds absolutely nothing to our understanding or misunderstanding of the painting. Is it straight

The name Alla, of course, has appeared in connection with Malevich before. His four works from 1882-1883, blue, black, white and red rectangles with titles like “First Communion of Anemic Girls in the Snow,” were shown in Untethered Art exhibitions. This was often remembered in connection with Malevich, but it was not entirely clear how the playful French idea related to the monumental Russian symbol new art. Now, apparently, one can perceive the quest of Russian avant-garde artists, in particular, as a response to French things.

If you are even slightly interested in the world of painting or fine arts, then you must have heard about Malevich’s black square. Everyone is perplexed by how mediocre modern art can be, supposedly artists paint whatever they like, and at the same time become popular and rich. This is not a completely correct idea of ​​art, I would like to develop this topic and tell you the history and even the background of the painting « .

Quotes from Malevich about « Black square »

If humanity painted the image of the Divine in its own image, then perhaps the Black Square is the image of God as a being of his perfection

What did the artist mean when he said these words? Let's try to find out about this together, but we can immediately say that there is clearly a meaning in this picture.

It is worth considering the fact that this picture loses all its value if you remove from it the history and the huge symbolism intertwined with the manifesto with which it is charged. So let's start from the very beginning, who drew the black square?

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich

Malevich against the background of his works

The artist was born in Kyiv into a Polish family and studied painting at the Kyiv Drawing School under academician Nikolai Pymonenko. After some time, he moved to Moscow to continue his studies in painting for more high level. But even then, in early years, he tried to put ideas into his paintings and deep meaning. In their early works mixed styles such as cubism, futurism and expressionism.

The idea of ​​creating a black square

Malevich experimented a lot, and got to the point where he began to interpret alogism in his own way (to deny logic and the usual sequence). That is, he did not deny that it is difficult to find echoes of logic in his works, but the absence of logic also has a law, thanks to which it can be meaningfully absent. If you understand the principles of the work of alogism, as he also called it “abstruse realism,” then the works will be perceived in a completely new key and in a sense of a higher order. Suprematism is the artist’s view of objects from the outside, and the usual forms to which we are accustomed are no longer used at all. The basis of Suprematism includes three main forms - a circle, a cross and our favorite square.

A black square in the place of the icon, in the corner. Exhibition 0.10

The meaning of the black square

What is the black square about, and what did Malevich want to convey to the viewer? With this painting, the artist, in his humble opinion, opened a new dimension of painting. Where there are no familiar forms, no golden ratio, color combinations and other aspects traditional painting. All the rules and foundations of art of those years were violated by one daring, ideological, original artist. It was the black square that marked the final break with academicism and took the place of the icon. Roughly speaking, this is something on the level of the matrix with its science fiction proposals. The artist tells us his idea that everything is not at all as we imagined. This picture is a symbol, after accepting which everyone should know new language V fine arts. After painting this picture, the artist, according to him, was in real shock and could neither eat nor sleep for a long time. According to the idea of ​​the exhibition, he was going to reduce everything to zero, and then even go a little negative, and he succeeded. The zero in the title symbolizes the form, and ten - the absolute meaning and the number of participants who were supposed to exhibit their Suprematist works.

That's the whole story

The story turned out to be short, due to the fact that there is a black square more questions than the answers themselves. Technically, the work is done simply and banally, but its idea fits into two sentences. There's no point in calling exact dates or Interesting Facts- many of them are made up or very inaccurate. But there is one interesting detail, which simply cannot be ignored. The artist dated everything to 1913 important events from life and my paintings. It was in this year that he invented Suprematism, so the physical and actual date of the creation of the black square did not bother him at all. But if you believe art critics and historians, then it was actually drawn in 1915.

Not first "H black square »

Don’t be surprised, Malevich was not a pioneer; the most original was the Englishman Robert Fludd, who created the painting “The Great Darkness” back in 1617.

After that, another row various artists created their masterpieces:

• "View of La Hogue (Night Effect)" 1843;
• "The Twilight History of Russia" 1854

Then two humorous sketches are created:

• "Night fight of blacks in the basement" 1882;
• "Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night" 1893

And only 22 years later, at the exhibition of paintings “0.10” the presentation of the painting took place « Black Suprematist Square"! It was presented as part of a triptych, which also included “Black Circle” and “Black Cross”. As you can see, Malevich’s square is an absolutely understandable and ordinary picture if you look at it from the right angle. Happened to me once Funny case, once they wanted to order a copy of a painting from me, but the woman did not know the very essence and intent of the black square. After I told her, she was a little disappointed and changed her mind about making such a dubious purchase. Indeed, in artistic terms, a black square is just a dark figure on the canvas.

Cost of Black Square

Oddly enough, this is a very common and trivial question. The answer to it is very simple - the Black Square has no price, that is, it is priceless. Back in 2002, one of the richest people in Russia bought it for the Tretyakov Gallery for a symbolic sum of one million dollars. IN this moment, no one will be able to get him into theirs private collection, not for any money. The Black Square is on the list of those masterpieces that should belong only to museums and the public.

There are works of art that everyone knows. For the sake of these paintings, tourists stand in long lines in any weather, and then, once inside, they simply take a selfie in front of them. However, if you ask a tourist who has strayed from the group why he is so eager to look at the masterpiece, he is unlikely to explain why he suffered, pushed and suffered with the focal length. Often the fact is that due to the constant information noise around a particular work, its very essence is forgotten. Our task in the “Great and Incomprehensible” section is to remember why everyone should go to the Hermitage, the Louvre and the Uffizi.

The first painting in our section was the painting “Black Square” by Kazimir Malevich. It is perhaps the most famous and controversial work of Russian art, and at the same time the most recognizable in the West. So, a large-scale exhibition is currently taking place in London, dedicated to creativity artist. The main exhibit was, of course, “Black Square”. One could even argue that European critics Russian art is associated not with Karl Bryullov and Ilya Repin, but with Malevich. At the same time, unfortunately, few visitors to the Tretyakov Gallery or the Hermitage can clearly say why this painting is so famous. Today we will try to fix this.

Kazimir Malevich (1879 - 1935) “Self-Portrait”. 1933

1. This is not"Black square", A"Black square on a white background"

And this is important. This fact is worth remembering like the Pythagorean theorem: it is unlikely to be useful in life, but not knowing it is somehow indecent.

K. Malevich “Black square on a white background.” 1915 Stored in the Tretyakov Gallery

2. It's not a square

At first, the artist called his painting “Quadrangle,” which is confirmed by linear geometry: there are no right angles, the sides are not parallel to each other, and the lines themselves are uneven. Thus he created a movable form. Although, of course, he knew how to use a ruler.

3. Why did Malevich draw a square?

In his memoirs, the artist writes that he did this unconsciously. However, the development of artistic thought can be traced through his paintings.

Malevich worked as a draftsman. It is not surprising that at first he was fascinated by cubism with its regular forms. For example, the painting from 1914 is “Composition with Gioconda.” Black and white rectangles are already appearing here.

On the left – Kazimir Malevich “Composition with Mona Lisa”. On the right is Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”, aka “La Gioconda”

Then, when creating the scenery for the opera “Victory over the Sun,” the idea of ​​a square as an independent element appeared. However, the painting “Black Square” appeared only two years later.

4. Why square?

Malevich believed that the square is the basis of all forms. If you follow the artist’s logic, the circle and the cross are already secondary elements: the rotation of the square forms a circle, and the movement of white and black planes forms a cross.

The paintings “Black Circle” and “Black Cross” were painted simultaneously with “Black Square”. Together they formed the basis of a new artistic system, but the dominance has always been behind the square.

“Black Square” – “Black Circle” – “Black Cross”

5. Why is the square black?

For Malevich, black is a mixture of all existing colors, while white is the absence of any color. Although, this completely contradicts the laws of optics. Everyone remembers how they told us at school that black color absorbs the rest, and white connects the entire spectrum. And then we did experiments with lenses, looking at the resulting rainbow. But with Malevich it’s the other way around.

6. What is Suprematism and how to understand it?

Malevich founded a new direction in art in the mid-1910s. He called it Suprematism, which means “supreme” in Latin. That is, in his opinion, this movement should have become the pinnacle of all creative searches of artists.

Suprematism is easy to recognize: various geometric figures combined into one dynamic, usually asymmetrical composition.

K. Malevich “Suprematism”. 1916
An example of one of the artist's many Suprematist compositions.

What does it mean? Such forms are usually perceived by the viewer as children's multi-colored cubes scattered on the floor. Agree, you can’t draw the same trees and houses for two thousand years. Art must find new forms of expression. And they are not always clear to ordinary people. For example, the paintings of the Little Dutch were once revolutionary and deeply conceptual. In still lifes, objects showed life philosophy. However, now they are perceived rather as beautiful pictures, the modern viewer simply does not think about deep meaning works.

Jan Davids de Heem "Breakfast with fruit and lobster." Second quarter of the 17th century.
Each element in Dutch still lifes carries a certain symbolic meaning. For example, lemon is a symbol of moderation.

This harmonious system collapses when one gets acquainted with the paintings of the avant-garde artists. The system “beautiful - not beautiful”, “realistic - not realistic” does not work here. The viewer has to think what these strange lines and circles on the canvas could mean. Although, in fact, there is no less meaning in lemons in Dutch still lifes, it’s just that museum visitors are not forced to figure it out. In 20th-century paintings, you must immediately understand the idea of ​​a work of art, which is much more difficult.

7. Was it really only Malevich who was so smart?

Malevich was not the first artist who began to create similar paintings. Many masters of France, England and Russia were close to comprehending non-objective art. Thus, Mondrian in 1913–1914 created geometric compositions, and the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint painted so-called color diagrams.

Hilma af Klint. From the series SUW (Stars and Universe). 1914 – 1915.

However, it was from Malevich that geometry acquired a clear philosophical overtones. His idea clearly followed from the previous artistic movement - cubism, where objects are divided into geometric shapes, and each of them is painted separately. In Suprematism, they stopped depicting the original form; artists switched to pure geometry.

Pablo Picasso "Three Women". 1908
An example of cubism. Here the artist does not yet abandon the prototype form - human body. The figures look like the work of a sculptor-carpenter, who seemed to have created his work with an axe. Each “cut” of the sculpture is painted with a shade of red and does not go beyond the boundaries.

8. How can a square be movable?

Despite its external static nature, this painting is considered one of the most dynamic in the history of the Russian avant-garde.

According to the artist, the black square symbolizes pure form, and White background- infinite space. Malevich used the adjective “dynamic” to show that this form is in space. It's like a planet in the universe.

So the background and form are inseparable from each other: Malevich wrote that “the most important thing in Suprematism is two foundations - the energy of black and white, which serve to reveal the form of action.” (Malevich K. Collected works in 5 volumes. M., 1995. Volume 1. P. 187)

9. Why does “Black Square” have two dates of creation?

The canvas was created in 1915, although the author himself back side wrote 1913. This was done, apparently, to bypass its competitors and establish primacy in the creation of Suprematist compositions. In fact, in 1913, the artist was designing the opera “Victory over the Sun,” and in his sketches, indeed, there was a black square as a symbol of this victory.

But the idea was realized in painting only in 1915. The painting was presented at the avant-garde exhibition “0, 10”, and the artist placed it in the red corner, a place where icons are usually hung in an Orthodox home. With this step, Malevich proclaimed the significance of the painting and was right: the painting became a turning point in the development of the avant-garde.

Photo taken at the exhibition “0, 10”. "Black Square" hangs in the red corner

10. Why is there a “Black Square” in both the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery?

Malevich addressed the theme of the square several times, since for him it is the most important Suprematist form, after which in order of importance come the circle and the cross.

There are four “Black Squares” in the world, but they are not complete copies of each other. They differ in size, proportions and time of creation.

"Black square". 1923 Kept in the Russian Museum

The second “Black Square” was created in 1923 for the Venice Biennale. Then, in 1929, especially for his personal exhibition the artist creates a third painting. It is believed that the director of the museum asked for it, because the original from 1915 was already covered with a network of cracks and craquelure. The artist did not like the idea, he refused, but then changed his mind. So there is one more square in the world.

"Black square". 1929 Stored in the Tretyakov Gallery

The last repetition was presumably created in 1931. No one knew about the existence of the fourth option until in 1993 a certain citizen came to the Samara branch of Inkombank and left this painting as collateral. The mysterious painting lover was never seen again: he never returned for the canvas. The painting began to belong to the bank. But not for long: he went bankrupt in 1998. The painting was bought and transferred to the Hermitage for storage.

"Black square". Early 1930s. Kept in the Hermitage

Thus, the first painting from 1915 and the third version from 1929 are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, the second version in the Russian Museum, and the last in the Hermitage.

11. How did contemporaries react to “Black Square”?

If there is no longer any hope of understanding Malevich’s work, there is no need to be sad. Even the followers of the Russian avant-garde artist did not fully understand the artist’s deep intentions. The diaries of one of the master’s contemporaries, Vera Pestel, have survived to this day. She writes:

“Malevich wrote just a square and painted it entirely with pink paint, and with another black paint, and then many more squares and triangles different colors. His room was elegant, all colorful, and it was nice for the eye to move from one color to another - all of different geometric shapes. How calm it was to look at the different squares, you didn’t think about anything, you didn’t want anything. Pink color made me happy, and the black one next to me also made me happy. And we liked it. We also became suprematists.” (Malevich about himself. Contemporaries about Malevich. Letters. Documents. Memoirs. Criticism. In 2 volumes. M., 2004. Volume 1. pp. 144-145)

This is the same as saying about still lifes of small Dutchmen - why think about it.

However, there are also more sensible comments. Despite the fact that not everyone understood the philosophical subtext of the painting, its significance was nevertheless appreciated. Andrei Bely said this about Suprematism:

“The history of painting and all these Vrubels in front of such squares are zero!” (Malevich about himself. Contemporaries about Malevich. Letters. Documents. Memoirs. Criticism. In 2 volumes. M., 2004. Volume 1. P. 108).

Alexandre Benois, founder of the World of Art movement, was extremely outraged by Malevich’s antics, but still understood the significance that the painting had acquired:

“A black square framed in white is the “icon” that gentlemen futurists offer in place of Madonnas and shameless Venuses. Is not simple joke, not a simple challenge, but this is one of the acts of self-affirmation of that principle, which has its name in the abomination of desolation...” (Benoit A. The last futurist exhibition. From “Malevich about himself...” T.2. P.524)

In general, the painting made a double impression on the artist’s contemporaries.

12. Why can’t I draw “Black Square” and become famous?

You can draw, but you won’t be able to become famous. Meaning contemporary art not only in creating something completely new, but also in presenting it correctly.

For example, black squares were painted before Malevich. In 1882, Paul Bealhold created a painting with the politically incorrect title “Night Fight of Negroes in the Basement.” Even earlier, in the 17th century, English artist Flood painted The Great Darkness. But it was the Russian avant-garde artist who outlined the new philosophy with his painting and exploited it for several decades. Can you do this? Then go ahead.

Robert Flood "The Great Darkness" 1617

Paul Bealhold "Night Night Fight of Negroes in the Basement." 1882

A century-long joke: experts from the Tretyakov Gallery spoke in detail about the secrets of the famous “Black Square” by Kazimir Malevich. The picture is already a hundred years old, but it is still impossible to say that it is well understood by the general public. Even art critics argue. The discussion is fueled by new facts that have become known to specialists. The name of the painting was originally completely different, and under the layers of paint there were two more paintings.

Sensational research details and unique footage. Employees of the Tretyakov Gallery filmed how they looked into the Black Square, reported. In X-rays, complexly interconnected geometric figures are clearly visible under the painting. This is a completely different picture. Yes, not one, but two, experts say. And both are colored.

The fact that the “Black Square” is not simple, and there is another image inside, was known already in the nineties of the last century, after the first studies. But the technology did not allow us to understand what exactly was there. Now, in the year of the painting’s centenary, experts have resumed their work using digital equipment. It wasn't just paintings that were discovered.

“The most important thing: in addition to the two compositions, we found fingerprints, presumably of Malevich himself, because they are embedded right on the damp layer, these are mainly areas of a white field,” said Ekaterina Voronina, a researcher at the department of scientific examination of the Tretyakov Gallery.

We also found an inscription. True, Malevich’s handwriting is not easy. But the experts deciphered: “The battle of blacks in a dark cave.” Now they consider this to be an absentee dialogue between the artist and his predecessors. Back at the end of the nineteenth century, black rectangles “Night fight of blacks in the basement” by Paul Bilhold appeared, and then by Alphonse Allais.

One thing is clear - creative process Malevich had a difficult one. But the version that he simply sketched unsuccessful works with black paint in his heart is refuted by new research.

"This is a complex paint that consists of several substances. Among them, for example, burnt bone, black carbon-containing pigment and chalk. That is, he prepared this paint. It was not spontaneous - he squeezed it out, wrote it - but still he thought about how it was will look like this,” noted Ekaterina Voronina.

“This is a special combination of pigments that gives a special velvety effect that Malevich needed. Because he needed not just black color, but a deep black abyss,” added Zelfira Tregulova, general director of the Tretyakov Gallery.

This is not only one of the most mysterious paintings in the world, but also one of the most expensive. Whether “Black Square” will become even more expensive, because now there is not one painting, but three, is a question. But the fact that interest in him will not disappear is absolutely certain. An infrared image of the painting may also appear in the Tretyakov Gallery. However, the fact that this is not exactly a “Black Square” can be seen even with the naked eye.

Yulia Bogomanshina, Alexandra Sergomasova, Dmitry Sharakin, TV Center