Page 46 - Studio International - April 1974

The One-and-a-half-eyed Archer' Benedict
Livshits, writing in general of art in France,
refers to 'the predominance of irrational
moments in creation, to which the original
idea of Gleizes and Metzinger lead, which
echoed, as Matiushin rightly grasped from it,
the teaching of Hinton on the fourth
dimension.'8 It seems unlikely that Matiushin
could have at once seized on 'the teaching of
Hinton on the fourth dimension' which is not
explicitly mentioned by Gleizes and
Metzinger, and refer to it in his article, unless
independently he knew enough about that
teaching to recognize the references to it. The
only phrase of Gleizes and Metzinger which
does seem to relate to Howard Hinton's
exposition 'The Fourth Dimension' is:
`Pictorial space may be defined as a sensible
passage between two subjective spaces,9
although in other passages they do refer to a
different concept of the fourth dimension (see
below). Matiushin's interest in the subject is
confirmed by the existence of an unpublished
text 'The Sense of the Fourth Dimension'
written at this time."
Hinton continually moves his arguments
between a two-dimensional, a three-
dimensional and a four-dimensional space,
trying to get the reader to understand that if
he were himself confined to a two-dimensional
world (Hinton's example - like a square on a
flat surface) he would find it impossible to
imagine a three-dimensional world; and thus
being in fact confined to a three-dimensional
world, he finds it impossible to imagine a
four-dimensional world, which, Hinton
postulates, is part of a 'higher space'.
Troels Anderson categorically asserts that
Malevich disagreed with Matiushin's analysis
of Gleizes and Metzinger in the light of Hinton's
`The Fourth Dimension' and quotes from
writings of Malevich dating from 1916 to
prove it. But before 1916, in the 0.10
exhibition (December 1915) Malevich
exhibited five paintings with titles which
include the phrase 'fourth dimension'. One of
these is called 'Lady. Colour masses of the
fourth and second dimension' and as other
titles of works in the same exhibition include
`in two dimensions' in their titles it would
seem that at the end of 1915 Malevich was still
distinguishing 'in two dimensions' from
`in the second dimension' and was not only
familiar with the term 'the fourth dimension'
but attached some meaning to such a concept.
The quotation Anderson uses to discredit the
idea that Malevich had become interested in
Hinton's ideas appears twice in his
Stedelijk Catalogue. The first time (p. 28)
he quotes : 'reason has locked up art in a four-
dimensional box'; the same quotation becomes
`Reason has now imprisoned art in a box of
square dimensions' when the whole passage
from Malevich's 'Secret Vices of the
Academicians' is translated separately (p. 5i).
The passage continues 'Foreseeing the danger
of a fifth and sixth dimension, I fled, since the
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