Table Of ContentMM aallee vviicchh
Gerry Souter
Author: Gerry Souter
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ISBN: 978-1-78042-926-7
Gerry Souter
Malevich
Journey to Infinity
Contents
Introduction 7
I. Youth and the Steppes 11
II. The Discovery of Art and His Experimentations:
Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism 27
III. Suprematism 105
IV. The Flight Crashes to Earth 187
Biography 252
Bibliographical Notes 253
List of Illustrations 254
6
Introduction
A
sudden cacophony thrust from the drone of Eastern European derivative art
movements in 1915, causing the volatile art world of that time to investigate who
was creating the latest fuss. They discovered a former Figurist, former Cubist,
former Futurist son of a Ukrainian sugar beet chemist. This young artist stepped out of the
Russian Realist/Futurist muddle as a fully-formed non-objective Suprematist with an
encrypted, seemingly impenetrable visual language. There was something there, no doubt
about it, but the intellect behind the images seemed either massive, or maybe it was a
fragile construction assembled through osmosis? Many artists have fallen upon the works of
philosophers in search of direction and from that assimilated wisdom wandered into an
inspired style patched together from accumulated epiphanies. Kasimir Malevich was one of
the latter. It was the suddenness of his ascension to the godhead that set him apart. He did
not evolve. He exploded onto the art scene.
While abstract innovations such as Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, Cubism and Expressionism
flourished in early twentieth century Western Europe and the United States, Suprematism
had the misfortune to be created in the seething geopolitical cauldron of Eastern Europe. It
was shaped as the Great War aligned East and West allies and empowered the power-thirsty
have-nots who had been crushed beneath centuries-old Imperial regimes. Suprematism was
revolutionary to a degree that it became counter-revolutionary the longer it persisted.
Beneath the relentless ideology of Lenin and Stalin’s iron fists there was only room for one
revolution at a time. Any expression that strayed from the Communist Party line became
anti-patriotic. As the Western art establishment looked on, one by one the Suprematists
winked out.
Just as quickly as he had discovered this non-objective art form, Malevich abandoned it for five
years of teaching and embracing the revolution. Feeling the heat of Stalin’s OGPU (Unified State
Political Directorate) secret police on his trail, Malevich backdated new figurative works and
took up his former style with variations in an attempt to survive, but he was a marked man. He
could not hide what he had done from the great grinding Patriotic Socialist Realism machine
that only permitted artwork that furthered the cause of Communism. By 1935 he succumbed
to cancer, and died in obscurity. The world raced from the financial ruin of the Great Depression
to the scourge of another World War.
Self-Portrait, 1910-1911.
Gouache on cardboard, 27 x 26.8 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
7
Fortunately, some of his works survived these decades of repression. A new generation can
come to grips with them, bringing home-cooked interpretations, as did those in the past. While
Suprematism is a footnote in the history of art, Kasimir Malevich deserves his place among the
great artists. His abrupt lunge into non-objective expression sits comfortably alongside Piet
Mondrian, Yves Tanguy, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Clyfford Still, Vassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-
Nagy and the flip-side of Jackson Pollock. He attempted to express the inexpressible, to make
unique firings of internal synapses into shared moments of common recognition. He distilled his
internal experience into the ultimate visual reduction based on a collection of philosophical
constructs he embraced with religious fervour.
As with the other great non-objective artists, there lingers that great curiosity to peer behind
the curtain and discover what made him tick. The life and times of Kasimir Malevich
produced a marvellous up-thrust in the evolutionary flow of art history. His great
contribution to non-objective art was preceded by a body of evolutionary works in Post-
Impressionist, Fauvist, Cubist and Futurist styles that revealed his search for a personal
vision, and was followed by an equally revealing collection of figural paintings that
demonstrated vitality in the face of repression. Even though the resulting tidal wave set
loose by his Suprematism eventually eroded down to a ripple, it produced a curiosity
requiring an excavation of many philosophical concepts to interpret. Above all, Malevich had
the courage and stamina to pursue his creation in a dangerous climate for innovation or
radical ideas.
Today, we have a greater understanding of Kasimir Malevich as he existed, a captive of his time
and place. The opacity of his personal philosophy has left behind a variety of equally valid
interpretations, but all his interpreters agree that he was a genius. Malevich is worth our
admiration and our respect.
An artist who creates rather than imitates expresses himself; his works are not
reflections of nature but, instead, new realities, which are no less significant than
the realities of nature itself.
Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World
8
A Reflection
The river empties to the sea,
But out it never flows;
The Cossack lad his fortune seeks,
But never fortune knows.
The Cossack lad has left his home,
He’s left his kith and kind;
The blue sea’s waters splash and foam,
Sad thoughts disturb his mind:
“Why, heedless, did you go away?
For what did you forsake
Your father old, your mother grey,
Your sweetheart, to their fate?
In foreign lands live foreign folks,
Their ways are not your way:
There will be none to share your woes
Or pass the time of day.”
Across the sea, the Cossack rests —
The choppy sea’s distraught.
He thought with fortune to be blessed —
Misfortune is his lot.
In vee-formation, ‘cross the waves
The cranes are off for home.
The Cossack weeps – his beaten paths
With weeds are overgrown...
Taras Shevchenko
St. Petersburg, 1838.
Translated by John Weir, Toronto
9
