Page 47 - Studio International - April 1974

fifth and sixth dimensions form a cube in which `Take the face A (diagram 4) and conceive it `black abyss'.17
art will stifle.' to exist simply as a face, a square with no Matiushin wrote about the performance that
This extraordinary passage occurs in the thickness. From this face the cube in our space `They (Malevich and Kruchenykh) presented a
context of an article by Malevich which begins extends by the occupation of space which we new creation, free of old conventional
with talk about the theatre, and could be can see. experiences and complete in itself, using
interpreted to mean that if the box-like space of `But from this face there extends equally a seemingly senseless words - picture-sounds -
the traditional stage were closed on the fifth cube in the unknown dimension. We think of new indications of the future that lead into
and sixth sides it would form a cube in which the higher cube, then, by taking the set of eternity and give a joyful feeling of strength to
a realistic representation would be shut and sections ABCD etc. and considering that from those who reverently will lend an ear and look at
literally stifle. But it seems more likely that by each of them there runs a cube. These cubes have it'. This description is remarkably close to
1916 Malevich had had plenty of opportunity nothing in common with each other and of Uspensky : 'Poetry endeavours to express both
through his continuing friendship with each of them in its actual position all that we music and thought together. The combination
Matiushin to learn far more about the can have in our space is an isolated square. It is of feeling and thought of high tension leads to a
usefulness and limitations of Hinton's theories of obvious that we can take our series of sections higher form of psychic life.'18
which an original, superficial reading (especially in any manner we please. We can take them The precise significance of the black square,
of the diagrams) had led him into complications parallel for instance to any one of the three or the square, at least, was further described
which had only been resolved by the isolated faces shown in the figure. by Lissitsky in an article which he wrote in
simplification which itself led to Suprematism.11 `Corresponding to the three series of the 1925:
Both the painting Musical instrument/lamp sections at right angles to each other which we `Our arithmetical notation which is called the
(first exhibited at the time of the performance can make of the cube in space, we must conceive positional system has long used the o, but it was
of 'Victory over the Sun') and one of the a higher cube, as composed of cubes starting from not until the sixteenth century that the o was
designs of scenery for the opera have a similar squares parallel to the faces of the cube and first regarded as a number, as a numerical
structure underlying their composition, as may of these cubes all that exist in our space are reality, and no longer as nothing (Cardano,
be shown in diagrammatic form. (See diagrams the isolated squares from which they start.'13 Taraglia). It is only now in the twentieth
i and 2.) These compositions seem to be based Troels Anderson describes the draft of a century that the [] is being acknowledged as a
on a marriage of certain ideas from French film about Suprematism which was never made, plastic value, as o in the complex body of A(rt).
Cubism with a diagram of Hinton's which but for which the drawings (which he relates to The solidly coloured [] stamped out in rich
shows the movement of a square into its the three-dimensional Planits') showed a cube tone on a white surface has now started to form
unknown dimension. (See diagram 3. Hinton of three different sizes which was then varied a new space. New optical discoveries have
figures 96 and 97.) dynamically, that is to say extended to produce taught us that two areas of different intensities,
As has been outlined above, Hinton `an oblong beam, square in section, and two even when they are lying in one plane, are
continually uses the example of a 'plane-being', boxes whose length is greater than their height.' grasped by the mind as being at different
confined to two dimensions, trying to imagine a Malevich, he says, 'saw the dynamic variants as distances from the eye.'19
third dimension. On this occasion (figure 96) the result of the fall through space of the From this explanation it is clear that the
he makes a diagram of a 'plane-square' A' original cubic form.'14 This idea links directly square is to be seen in diagram form so that it
drawn in the centre of a field bounded by a with Hinton: 'Thus taking a higher cube, we becomes a kind of artistic equivalent of zero.
larger square and with the central square 'A' can look on it as starting from a cube in our In the catalogue to the exhibition 0.10 in which
surrounded by contiguous squares, thus making space and extending in the unknown his suprematist paintings were first exhibited
it invisible to another plane being. In the second dimension.' Malevich actually stated 'I have transformed
diagram (figure 97) the square becomes a cube The Black Square surrounded by a white myself in the zero of form' (sic).20 A photograph
and the surrounding squares also assume this border has become the emblem of of the installation of the exhibition shows the
shape. However, the new cube 'A' needs the Suprematism and in the context of its beginnings black square on a white ground to have been
addition of a fifth and sixth cube to make it may be the face of the cube extending not only hung, high up on the wall and across the
invisible in our world. Hinton's conclusion: in our space into three dimensions, but in corners, which emphasizes Lissitsky's
`The fact is that we have to recognize that, if `higher' space into the fourth dimension and of continuation, in which the new space of
there is another dimension of space, our which cubes 'all that exist in our space are the Suprematism becomes 'Irrational space'.
present idea of a solid body, as one which has isolated squares from which they start'. Black In the section of the article thus headed,
three dimensions only, does not correspond to takes into itself all other colours, and so for Lissitsky likens the flat surface of the picture
anything real, but is the abstract idea of a three that matter does white: the two represent the to o and says that as suprematist space may be
dimensional boundary limiting a four- polarity with a range of interpretations as great formed not only forward from the plane but
dimensional solid, which a four-dimensional as the simple vertical and horizontal which also backward in depth, the space in the
being would form:12 Perhaps this is the figure Mondrian adopted in 1915. forward direction can be called positive and
in which art, shut up inside a cube, would Tradition takes Malevich's Black Square described by the mathematical -1- plus sign,
stifle ? back to 1913: Malevich himself spoke of and the space in depth negative, and described
Equally of interest is the following passage Suprematism having arisen in 1913, he did not by the — minus sign, or vice-versa. Lissitsky
from Hinton: 'As the plane being (earlier say that he made suprematist works in that continues : 'We see that Suprematism has
described as like a piece of paper on a table, year. But in a lecture entitled 'New Russian swept away from the plane the illusions of
i.e. one whose world is totally comprised Art' written in 1922 Lissitsky says that 'In 1913 three-dimensional perspective space, with its
of a single plane in space) can think of the Malevich exhibited a black square painted on a infinite extensibility into the background and
cube as consisting of sections, each like a white canvas'.15 The dates in that lecture are all foreground.' (see diagram 5.)
solid which we know, extending away from rather muddled, but Lissitsky also says about Lissitsky describes his own 'prouns' in
his plane, so we can think of a higher solid `Victory over the Sun', 'The opera was presented De Stijl in 1922: 'Proun begins as a level
as composed of sections, each like a solid which for the first time in 1913, in Petersburg . . . surface, turns into a model of three-dimensional
we know, but extending away from our space. Malevich painted the scenery (the curtain - space . . .' and so it seems that even though
`Thus taking a higher cube, we can look on it the black square).16 Perhaps this black square Lissitsky was trained as an architect in
as starting from a cube in our space and used as a drop curtain is what caused Livshits Germany, and had a much clearer understanding
extending in the unknown dimension. to describe the first moments of the opera as a of the real nature of mathematics and
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