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Suprematism is an art
movement focused on fundamental geometric forms (squares and
circles) which formed in Russia in 1913.
When Kasimir Malevich originated Suprematism in 1913 he was
an established painter having exhibited in the Donkey's Tail
and the Blaue Reiter exhibitions of 1912 with cubo-futurist
works. The proliferation of new artistic forms in painting,
poetry and theatre as well as a revival of interest in the
traditional folk art of Russia were a rich environment in
which a Modernist culture was being born.
In his book The Non-Objective World, Malevich described the
inspiration which brought about the powerful image of the
black square on a white ground:
'I felt only night within me and it was then that I
conceived the new art, which I called Suprematism'.
Malevich also ascribed the birth of Suprematism to the
Victory Over the Sun, Kruchenykh's Futurist opera production
for which he designed the sets and costumes in 1913. One of
the drawings for the backcloth shows a black square divided
diagonally into a black and a white triangle. Because of the
simplicity of these basic forms they were able to signify a
He created a Suprematist 'grammar' based on fundamental
geometric forms; the square and the circle. In the 0.10
Exhibition in 1915, Malevich exhibited his early experiments
in Suprematist painting. The centrepiece of his show was the
Black square on white, placed in what is called the golden
corner in ancient Russian Orthodox tradition ; the place of
the main icon in a house.
Another important influence on Malevich were the ideas of
Russian mystic-mathematician P D Ouspensky who wrote of
'a fourth dimension beyond the three to which our ordinary
senses have access', (Gooding, 2001).
Some of the titles to paintings in 1915 express the concept
of a non-euclidian geometry which imagined forms in
movement, or through time; titles such as: Two dimensional
painted masses in the state of movement. These give some
indications towards an understanding of the Suprematic
compositions produced between 1915 and 1918.
The Supremus group which, in addition to Malevich included
Aleksandra Ekster, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Ivan
Kliun, Liubov Popova, Nina Genke-Meller, Ivan Puni and
Ksenia Boguslavskaya met from 1915 onwards to discuss the
philosophy of Suprematism and its development into other
areas of intellectual life.
This development in artistic expression came about when
Russia was in a revolutionary state, when ideas were in
ferment and the old order was being swept away. By 1920 the
state was becoming authoritarian and limiting the freedom of
From 1918 the Russian avant-garde experienced the limiting
of their artistic freedoms by the authorities and in 1934
the doctrine of Socialist Realism became official policy,
and prohibited abstraction and divergence of artistic
expression. Malevich nevertheless retained his main
conception. In his self-portrait of 1933 he represented
himself in a traditional way — the only way permitted by
Stalinist cultural policy — but signed the picture with a
tiny black-over-white square.
Suprematism. (2006, November 8). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:22, November 26, 2006, from