Page 36 - Studio International - June 1974

conceived by Malevich at that time. On the are seen, as well as several ill-assorted objects that the painter wants to give to each isolated
background, representing one of the most (sabre, candle, fish, spoon, ladder),28 image in his composition. The system of values to
striking results of discursive logic and already superimposed on a person seen in profile. be chosen by the painter — well known by the
traditionally involved in the analytical The brutality of this arbitrary juxtaposition, hierarchy of representations contained in
fragmentation of the forms, a metric line, whose defying the logic of the 'cultured viewer' who mediaeval painting — reappears and opposes the
uniform distinctness makes a striking contrast wants to see 'bits of nature' in a picture, is pragmatic objectivity of the Renaissance. At the
with the background, is opposed across the taken here to a degree of voluntary affirmation same time, Malevich's vivid figures affirm a
horizontal width of the picture. Like Gnedov's that not only defies any causality of compositional independence allowing us to see
extremist gesture in his Poem of the End, this pragmatic-materialist logic, but also any in this phase of his evolution a structure of
line annihilates the growing and insoluble `representative' organization stemming from it. a-prioric affirmation and free choice,
complication of the cubo-futurist background. To explain Malevich's cognitive procedure, obviously lacking in the spatial system of
Unlike the Parisian cubists, who, alarmed by the we must once more refer to P. D. Ouspenski's mediaeval painting. Far from repeating a
inevitable consequences of an analytical postulates as defined in his Tertium Organum of procedure, Malevich reinvents it and enriches it
research, escape it by a synthetic reflex in 1911. Analysing the limits of the old logic of by the a-logical determinant, which resolutely
introducing a new meaning (endowing daily objective consciousness (which should be draws the images enclosed in the composition
life with 'aesthetic' value, Malevich seeks the paralleled with the 'realist' and 'figurative' towards a new semantic freedom. The different
radical movement beyond this analytical convention in painting), he notes that these objects are shown by violent and contrasting
complication whose interminable atomization limits are confined not to the conceptualized colours. Pure painting bursts back after too
could no longer reveal new meanings. A new study of facts, but only to the perception of long an absence, due to the monochromatic
and totally different meaning could only result facts28a Cade bits of nature' criticized by austerity of analytical Cubism.29
from an open conflict created by an unfamiliar Malevich). To get beyond the sterile Today, we are also familiar with several
element, in violent contrast with the old path of atomization of our logic, incapable of drawings3° where we can see the juxtaposition
research and forcibly introducing into this assimilating a growing quantity of information, of geometrical elements with objects (the famous
whole a real semantic provocation. Another it is useless to hope for a quantitative solution, wooden spoons),3' as well as inscriptions.
canvas of the same period, Eclipse with Mona for the world of 'mechanical solutions' is Next to a square, we can read the inscription
Lisa,21 illustrates even more clearly the limited to this 'third dimension of `what a cheek!'. Other drawings include
semantic and destructive direction of consciousness'. It vows itself incapable of a arrows, geometrical elements and figurative
Malevichian research. On the background of an qualitative transgression. This is why objects, all included in the same composition.
incomplete cubist composition (at the top left), Ouspenski declares this type of reasoning Using the multi-symbolic language of the rebus,
are the inscriptions 'Partial', `Eclipse'; lower outmoded and predicts the inevitable advent of Malevich invents Paul Klee's system, to
down bits of paper are stuck on with the words a 'fourth dimension of consciousness', based on abandon it shortly after, having explored the
`flat to repair' and below that 'in Moscow'. the conceptual transformation of all factors, functioning of its mechanism of meaning.
In the central part of the composition, a partial reduced to a single analytical denominator. On the eve of the leap into the realm of 'pure'
image of the famous painting by Leonardo da Their meaning will be governed by a new order forms, the end of an order of symbolic figuration
Vinci, the Mona Lisa, is affixed. The image is of synthetic concepts, eliminating the will be marked by works completely detached
crossed by several wide diagonal lines. Those specificity of the object and atomist from the formal-analytical platform by being
across the face in particular leave the clearly particularization. In the same way as the notions reduced to the single minimal meaning that a
iconoclastic intention of the painter in no doubt. of time and space are brought by modern pictorial and representative composition (with
Thus the famous smile of 'the sweet Psyche', physics (Minowski, 1908), to a spatio-temporal an extra-formal subject) can convey. They are
one of the hidden forces of representative art, is continuum, metaphorically referred to as the works (drawings) comprising only an
wiped out. It is symbolized here by one of the `fourth dimension', all the elements of inscription inside a frame, the latter clearly
most obsessive psychological stereotypes of consciousness must move towards this type of indicating that they are pictorial compositions :
European art, thus defining from the discourse of a superior conceptual and Brawl on the avenue, A purse has been stolen on
beginning the great classical tradition of deductive logic28b . Thus the logic of figurative the tram, etc.32
figurative painting. In the same way as the mimetism (`the illusion of meaning' denounced The reduction of the subject to its title alone
cubists, particularly Picasso, attacked the great by Kant) is abolished, in favour of a conceptual takes the meaning of the image to the extremes
subject of classical painting — the nude — deduction, whose success in the realm of of a single meaning, in contradiction to the
Malevich, by destroying a further level of Einsteinian physics was to reveal its terrifying old dialectic unity, meaning <=> form, whose
action of images, settled modern art's account functional power. On the path of this change of limits of semantic and formal functioning are
with psychological slavery to the subject, in world logic, Malevich is still at the analytical thus pointed out. If it seems unlikely that
another stage. The comparison of the stage in 1914, that of the destruction of the Malevich had the time to translate the results of
destructive action of Demoiselles d'Avignon old schemas of meaning. Only after their this research into major works, to produce oil
(1907) and this Eclipse with Mona Lisa (1914) destruction could he move forward to the paintings showing these ideas,33 one of his
allow us to situate, in their rightful place, these synthetic phase, to the creation of examples of a close friends at that time, the painter Ivan Puni
two artistic revolts, so different in their field of superior form of symbolic thought. (1894-1956) has left works enabling a more
action (pure form in Cubism, anti-psychological The positioning of the objects in the detailed understanding of this new stage in
form-meaning for Malevich), but so composition with the Mona Lisa by Malevich is Malevich's iconoclastic path. During the
similar by the historic place they henceforth clearly opposed to a mimetic order (the period 1914-1916,34 he produced works which
occupy in the history of modern art. The illusionist perspective of the Renaissance), have often been called 'dadaist' by Western
anti-naturalist reaction of which Picasso's stemming from fixed laws according to which, critics. In fact, they are the ultimate conclusions
Demoiselles d'Avignon is a decisive stage finds by a system of numerical connections the of Malevich's trans-rational researches,
its summit in the complexity of Malevich's spatial relations between the figures, explained by one of its most faithful adepts of
`A-logical' works in 1914. The Englishman in recognizable pragmatically in nature, can be the time. One of the most remarkable works of
Moscow (Coll. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam) `shown in perspective' on the canvas. In the this kind, a work shown in December 1915 at
belongs to this same series of radically Englishman in Moscow, Malevich rejects this the 'Last Futurist Exhibition: 0.10', called
iconoclastic steps. Similar inscriptions to those convention to replace it by an order of Baths35 shows a red quadrilateral with another
of Eclipse with Mona Lisa (`Eclipse', 'Partial') representative values governed by the value white quadrilateral inside it, with the inscription
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