Suprematism (art movement)

Derived from the Latin supra materiam, meaning beyond the material, suprematism was used by Polish-Russian artist and writer, Kazimir Malevich, to describe the principles of an artistic movement that he founded in Moscow, Russia, in 1915. Artists El Lissitzky and Aleksander Rodchenko also played a significant role in the movement. Suprematism was one of the earliest avant-garde movements in Russia that emerged before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Its style is nonobjective and geometrically abstract. It became widely known for its emblematic coloured squares, rectangles, and circles drawn on a white or light-colored background. Suprematism is radical and deeply antimaterialist in its conception proposing a total break with the past forms of art. It aimed at highlighting the "supremacy of pure artistic feeling" over the materialism of the depicted object. Suprematism is one of the earliest radical efforts in art to achieve total abstraction.

Brief History

Suprematism constitutes a radical evolution of cubo-futurism, a style practised by Russian futurists slightly before the outbreak of the World War I. The earliest manifestation of the style is to be found in a series of costume and stage designs that Malevich produced for the futurist opera Victory over the Sun, which premiered in Saint Petersburg in 1913. The opera was written in zaum (transreason), an indeterminate transrational experimental language used by Russian futurist poets. Zaum exerted considerable influence over the early stages of suprematism since Malevich was interested in applying zaum to painting. This effort is evident in the artist’s Alogic compositions of 1914–1915. The earliest dated suprematist work is the emblematic Black Square on a White Background, elaborated by Malevich in 1913.

The group Supremus, founded in 1915, brought together a number of Russian avant-garde artists that developed the principles of the movement, namely Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Aleksandra Ekster, and others. Suprematist works were displayed for the first time in 1915 at the 0.10 Exhibition (also known as the Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10) in Petrograd. Malevich thought that the objective world is meaningless, giving a prominent place to the aspects of sensation and pure feeling, which became the foundations of the suprematist aesthetic theory. Suprematists introduced the idea of four-dimensional space, questioning the conventional two-dimensional and three-dimensional perspective that characterised the art of the past. The movement sought to underline the imperative need for simplification of forms, which were reduced to pure geometrical shapes.

From 1913 to 1918, the development of suprematism was divided by Malevich into three phases: color, black, and white. Supremastist art went through a series of experiments that often led to monochromatic extremes. This is the case with the composition White on White (1918) that included a white square painted on a white background, which according to Malevich represented the infinite space, resulting in an indefinable composition that gave the impression of an empty canvas. Other examples include Rodchenko’s Non-Objective Painting No. 80 - Black on Black (1918), which was conceived in the same spirit. In 1918, Malevich redefined suprematism in terms of five phases/sensations: static, dynamic, magnetic, nonexistence, and nonobjectivity. In 1919, the artist announced the end of the movement.

Impact

Suprematism is considered to be one of the most radical developments in twentieth century art that provided a theoretical framework for the understanding and proliferation of geometrical abstract art. Its revolutionary conception, which was groundbreaking in artistic terms, was reduced to the simplification of form with no apparent interest in the social role of art, an issue of great importance in post-Revolutionary Russia. The art of the suprematists was profoundly antimaterialistic in its conception but had no apparent ideological preoccupations. It can be described, however, in terms of an intellectual experiment that aimed to surpass and diminish both nature and past developments in art.

Malevich thought of suprematism as the culmination of a gradual artistic effort to abolish traditional forms of art. This effort, according to him, started with Cézanne and was intensified with the emergence of cubism and futurism. Suprematism, Malevich thought, was the latest and most radical invention in art aiming to serve the same end.

Suprematism is often paired with constructivism, which emerged in 1919, because after the Revolution, many artists moved from one style to the other. Constructivism, however, turned into a deeply ideological and materialist movement that contradicted the founding principles of the former, notably in the use of raw materials and its conception of art as social practice. Malevich thought that society should conform to the new abstract world that he created, while constructivism was preoccupied with the transformation of society through industrial production and functionalism.

Suprematism also stood in opposition to other abstract movements such as the Dutch De Stijl and neoplasticism, which advocated materialism and functionalism. Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky, a pioneer abstractionist, adapted several ideas derived from suprematism to his work without being affiliated with the movement. Malevich’s theories were largely appreciated in Warsaw where some of his former students founded the abstract movement unism.

The ideas of suprematism found their expression in architecture, notably in the 1920s, although Malevich insisted on total abstraction of form and remained indifferent toward the aspect of functionalism. Malevich maintained his views against utilitarianism with his positions being criticised by Russian Marxist and leftist intellectuals as utopian. Rodchenko and El Lissitzy were subsequently assimilated to the constructivist movement. Malevich’s architectural designs and theories on abstraction were taught in architectural schools and had an important theoretical impact but could not serve as models for architectural practice as their applicability was largely questioned. Nonetheless, they served as useful tools for the study of utopian cities.

With the rise of Stalinism and the emergence of Socialist Realism, a politically engaged art that employed a readable pictorial vocabulary of political messages, abstract art declined in Russia because of its inability to serve the ends of political propaganda. Suprematism, however, exerted considerable influence over European and American abstract art. The minimalist movement that emerged in the 1960s has been largely influenced by the reductive art theories of Malevich.

Bibliography

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Shatskikh, Aleksandra, and Marian Schwartz. Black Square: Malevich and the Origin of Suprematism. New Haven: Yale UP, 2012. Print.