Page 47 - Studio International - October1968

Suprematism, a canvas has been created which cover of the album for the 'Conference on Rural referred to, some painters who worked without
carries an inner vitality. This canvas has grown Poverty', which had been selected by the delegates specific objects. They aspired to the pure subjective
out of the artist just as organically as a flower out themselves in the year 1918, hung in many huts portrayal of their emotions by means of colour-
of the soil, just as pure in colour, as exactly and in the northern provinces, alongside their icons combinations. By comparison with the work of the
clearly cut in all its parts as a plant. Every flat and their coloured prints. Suprematist painting Suprematists their pictures reminded one of
surface designed is a sign—not a mystical symbol, created a style which is finding expression in rubbish-heaps placed next to regularly-formed
but a concrete sketch of reality. A sign is a form embroidery, metalwork, woodwork, posters, and crystals. At best they were tapestries, fine wall-
through which we express phenomena. It can even in the painting of houses. However, Supre- papers. The typical representative of this group
originate in two ways. Firstly: By agreement as to matism was not content with this and did not wish was Kandinsky. He introduced the artistic formulas
what meaning these signs shall have. We have the to remain merely a decorative style, so it continued of contemporary German metaphysics, and there-
design for a mountain city, in all its diversity, on the road toward the annihilation of painting. fore in Russia he remained a purely episodic
drawn on a flat piece of paper in the form of a It seems to have begun to appreciate the relative phenomenon. But the necessity, so strongly felt by
town-plan; we understand the sketch, because we lack of colour in the town by comparison with the young Russian painters, for an established order
had established the signs on it in advance. We village. This idea found expression in the final as a basis for all art instigated other non-objective
have expressed the whole terrestrial globe in two creations of the Suprematists, and in 1918 Malevich painters—Rozanova in her latest works, Rod-
circles, and the infinity of the firmament in a exhibited a white canvas on which a plane was chenko, and others—to renounce subjective ex-
scattering of dots as fine as dust on a cosmographic indicated with another white colour. By forsaking pression and take the third road to the same Rome,
atlas. But with these signs we have expressed what the colourful and going over to the colourless the road to constructive art.
was there already in the world, what had already aspect, the Suprematists concentrated their at- Let us consider the plan of this 'Rome'. Its foun-
been built. These signs were created by us and tention on arranging flat, geometric planes, which dation-wall was the Russian Revolution. It began
became clear to us once our brain had emerged were to serve as ground plans for further spatial as a powerful, elemental movement of the peasan-
from its primitive state and reached its present construction. try, and surged onward to organization and re-
labyrinthine complexity. This is the contribution of Suprematism and of the construction. On the other hand, the young
Now the second possibility: A sign is designed, Proun to the general trend of constructive design painters, who up till 1917 had been a small sect,
much later it is given its name, and later still its resulting from the work of the two fundamental were glad to have the opportunity, for the first
meaning becomes clear. So we do not understand groups led by Tatlin and Malevich. Belonging to time, of tranforming their laboratory into a
the signs, the shapes, which the artist created, the first Suprematist group there was, besides factory. To them their basic purpose was the
because man's brain has not yet reached the cor- Malevich, a very gifted female painter, Rozanova, extension of the foundation and the introduction
responding stage of development. who died suddenly while we were preparing of art into living. Life posed questions and de-
Suprematism has a new criterion for evaluating artistic works for the first October Revolution manded immediate replies to them: what role
everything created in plastic design. Instead of jubilee. In Little Russia a whole series of villages does art play in the new society, in which the field
beauty it is economy. If, on the one hand, Supre- did weaving and embroidery on a large scale, of creative activity becomes common property?
matism is a result of the whole culture of painting, under the direction of Aga Rozanova, Davidova, The first answer was the solution: in productive
on the other hand, the intensity of its colours and and Alexandra Exter. Then there was Ivan art, which means transferring the task of the
its observation of life are deeply-rooted in the Klyun, who not only produced painting but also painters from the studio to the factories and works.
Russian village. At the same time it may be re- spatial creations, and also Drevin, Lyubov It is not the task of the painter to embellish things
marked that the Russian village, for its part, Popova and others. already created, but he should take part himself
recognized itself in Suprematism. So it was that the There appeared, parallel with the movements in bringing them into existence. In this way the

above Photomontage, 1931
left Detail of cover for catalogue of the Japanese Cinema
Exhibition, Moscow