Editing Kazimir Malevich (section)

==Suprematism (1915)==
In 1915, Malevich laid down the foundations of [[Suprematism]] when he published his manifesto, ''From Cubism to Suprematism''. In 1915–1916, he worked with other Suprematist artists in a peasant/artisan [[co-operative]] in [[Shoptsi|Skoptsi]] and [[Verbovka]] village. In 1916–1917, he participated in exhibitions of the [[Jack of Diamonds (artists)|Jack of Diamonds]] group in Moscow together with [[Nathan Altman]], [[David Burliuk]], [[Aleksandra Ekster]] and others. Famous examples of his Suprematist works include ''[[Black Square (painting)|Black Square]]'' (1915)<ref>Drutt and Malevich 2003, p. 243.</ref> and ''[[White On White]]'' (1918).

Malevich exhibited his first ''Black Square'', now at the [[Tretyakov Gallery]] in Moscow, at the [[0,10 Exhibition|Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10]] in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) in 1915.<ref name=HF/> A black square placed against the sun appeared for the first time in the 1913 scenic designs for the [[Futurism|Futurist]] opera ''Victory over the Sun''.<ref name=HF/> The second ''Black Square'' was painted around 1923. Some believe that the third ''Black Square'' (also at the Tretyakov Gallery) was painted in 1929 for Malevich's solo exhibition, because of the poor condition of the 1915 square. One more ''Black Square'', the smallest and probably the last, may have been intended as a diptych together with the ''[[Red Square (painting)|Red Square]]'' (though of smaller size) for the exhibition Artists of the RSFSR: 15 Years, held in Leningrad (1932). The two squares, Black and Red, were the centerpiece of the show. This last square, despite the author's note ''1913'' on the reverse, is believed to have been created in the late twenties or early thirties, for there are no earlier mentions of it.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/what-s-on/temp_exh/1999_2013/hm4_1_30/?lng=en|title=Hermitage Museum, ''Malevich. Black Square'', Exhibition: 20 June 2002 – 30 June 2003|publisher=Hermitagemuseum.org|access-date=18 March 2014|archive-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306113907/http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/what-s-on/temp_exh/1999_2013/hm4_1_30/?lng=en|url-status=live}}</ref>

While Malevich's ideas and theories behind Suprematism were grounded in a belief in the spiritual and transformative power of art, he saw Suprematism as a way to access a higher, more pure realm of artistic expression and to tap into the spiritual through abstraction. Thus, the overarching philosophy of Suprematism expressed in various manifestos would be that he "transformed himself in the zero of form and dragged himself out of the rubbish-heap of illusion and the pit of naturalism. He destroyed the ring of the horizon and escaped from the circle of objects, moving from the horizon-ring to the circle of spirit".<ref>{{cite web|title=Malevich: Suprematism|pages=116–124|website=monoskop.org|url=https://monoskop.org/images/5/58/Malevich_Kazimir_1927_2000_Suprematism.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171126225709/https://monoskop.org/images/5/58/Malevich_Kazimir_1927_2000_Suprematism.pdf|archive-date=26 November 2017|access-date=28 December 2024}}</ref>

Malevich's student [[Anna Leporskaya]] observed that Malevich "neither knew nor understood what the black square contained. He thought it so important an event in his creation that for a whole week he was unable to eat, drink or sleep".<ref name="Neret2003">{{cite book |last=Néret |first=Gilles |author-link=Gilles Néret |year=2003 |title=Malevitch |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YbvaqgO81HcC&pg=PA50 |location=Köln |publisher=[[Taschen]] |page=50 |isbn=3-8228-1961-1}}</ref> In 1918, Malevich decorated a play, ''[[Mystery-Bouffe]]'', by [[Vladimir Mayakovskiy]] produced by [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]]. He was interested in [[aerial photography]] and [[aviation]], which led him to [[abstract art|abstract]]ions inspired by or derived from [[aerial landscape]]s.<ref name="chadaga">Julia Bekman Chadaga (2000). Conference paper, "Art, Technology, and Modernity in Russia and Eastern Europe". Columbia University, 2000. "the Suprematist is associated with a series of aerial views rendering the familiar landscape into an abstraction…"</ref>{{Multiple image
| image1            = 0.10 Exhibition.jpg
| image2            = Kazimir Malevich - Suprematism - Google Art Project.jpg
| image3            = Kazimir Malevich - 'Suprematist Composition- White on White', oil on canvas, 1918, Museum of Modern Art.jpg
| direction         = horizontal
| caption2          = Супрематизм» Suprematism, oil on canvas, 1915 Russian Museum
| caption3          = Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, Museum of Modern Art, New York
| caption1          = Suprematist works by Malevich at the 0.10 Exhibition, Petrograd, 1915
| width             = 200
| align             = center
}}

=== Painting technique ===
According to an observation by radiologist and art historian Milda Victurina, one of the features of Kazimir Malevich's painting technique was the layering of paints one on another to get a special kind of colour spots. For example, Malevich used two layers of colour for the red spot—the lower black and the upper red. The light ray going through these colour layers is perceived by the viewer not as red, but with a touch of darkness. This technique of superimposing the two colours allowed experts to identify fakes of Malevich's work, which generally lacked it.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Фальшак |url=https://www.sovsekretno.ru/articles/falshak/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190704212713/https://www.sovsekretno.ru/articles/falshak/ |archive-date=4 July 2019 |access-date=2021-11-22 |website=www.sovsekretno.ru}}</ref>