Suprematism was a term created in 1915 by Kazimir Malevich. The word Suprematism itself implied the supremacy of this new art in relation to the past. Malevich saw it as aesthetic and was concerned only with form, free from any political or social meaning. He stressed the purity of shape, particularly of the square, and he regarded suprematism as primarily an exploration of visual language comparable to contemporary developments in writing. Suprematist paintings were first displayed at an art exhibition held in St Petersburg in December 1915, they comprised geometric forms which appeared to float against a white background. While suprematism began before the Revolution of 1917, its influence, and the influence of Malevich's approach to art, was very pervasive in the early Soviet period.
We can trace the beginnings of suprematism to his sets and costumes for the Russian Opera. His designs reflected the complex synthesis of Russian and west European art that reached its height on the eve of World War I. From the simplest geometric, monochrome shapes, Malevich built an entire suprematist universe in a series of stunning canvases like this composition painted around 1916. For a production in 1915, Malevich proposed a black square as a backdrop. At the exhibition the Black Square painted on a square canvas surrounded by a margin of white, was hung across the corner of the separate room where works by Malevich and his followers were displayed; it was announced as the essential Suprematist work. On the one hand it was radically nihilistic and could be interpreted as a gesture of rejection, providing no narrative, theme, composition or picture space, apparently rejecting all pictorial conventions and offering a canvas of unprecedented blankness; on the other hand suspension across the corner of a room was a common way to display domestic icons, and by referring to this tradition its rejection of convention.
RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY AVANT-GARDE The avant-garde way of life prospered in Russia directly following the Revolution of 1917, generating one of the most awe-inspiring art movements of the twentieth century. Assembling an entirely new government, the Bolsheviks gave free reign to the Russian avan...
Malevich saw Suprematism as representing a yearning for space, an impulse to break free from the globe of the earth. ... They created a lot of interest and he coined the term Constructivism. ... They were looking for the official proletarian art and, although suprematism had some ideas they could use, Constructivism was looking better and better. ... By the 1920s, Constructivism became the dominant art primarily because they were able to fuse poster art with fine art and make it accessible to the masses. ... The government saw Constructivism as a tool and all other art as Art. ...
Malevich saw Suprematism as representing a yearning for space, an impulse to break free from the globe of the earth. ... They created a lot of interest and he coined the term Constructivism. ... They were looking for the official proletarian art and, although suprematism had some ideas they could use, Constructivism was looking better and better. ... By the 1920s, Constructivism became the dominant art primarily because they were able to fuse poster art with fine art and make it accessible to the masses. ... The government saw Constructivism as a tool and all other art as Art. ...
Almost entirely devoted to his now traditional subjects - the artist at work and play, the circus, the bullfight, and women - Picasso drew with pencil, pen, felt pen, and the tools of the etcher and engrave Cubism in 20th Century Cubism was one of the strongest art movements in the 20th century that gave birth to many other movements such as futurism and suprematism. ... œThey now pinned less faith on the power of new subject matter and strove to complement their colour divisionism with fragmentation of the cub...
"Music illuminates a person through and through. It is also his last hope and final refuge. And even half mad Stalin, a beast and a butcher, instinctively sensed that about music. That is why he feared and hated it." - Dmitri Shostakovich On November 7, 1917, the Russian Bolsheviks stormed the Win...
