Page 31 - Studio International - March April 1975

other art, could perhaps be best
demonstrated cinematically, in a
succession of dynamically superimposed
images, or to put it differently,
`futuristically'. Take a Cezanne still
life, its forms fully modelled in colour.
Imagine next a similar subject simplified
and hence to a certain degree abstracted
as in a work by Braque of 1908.
Then imagine the subject reflected in a
mirror and watch it while the mirror is
struck from behind so that it remains flat
but shatters its reflected image into a
thousand glinting planes (as in a
Braque of 191o). Next visualize the
planes beginning to realign themselves
along a more abstract, linear scaffolding
and then slowly moving outwards to
cluster along the painting's edges (as in
Braque's work of 1911-12). Finally
imagine the planes revolving through
space and coming together in totally new,
simpler configurations charged with
emotive power (Braque's papiers collés).
I believe that it was in this way that in
1915 Malevich had come to view
Cubism. Seen in black and white the
first suprematist works following on
from the Black Square resemble most
closely (in so far as they resemble
anything at all) cubist collages, works
(Above) Malevich, Head of a Peasant Girl, the object, left the field of objectivity . . which Malevich can have seen only in
1912, 8o x 95 cm. Oil on canvas. he declared in 1919.9 Despite the flux black and white reproduction and which
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam of shifting, interpenetrating planes which he can have imagined as being highly
(Left) Juan Gris, Portrait of the we observe in hermetic Cubism, basically coloured." And to come to a true
Artist's Mother, 1912, 55 x 46 cm. Oil on it was a classically orientated art in its understanding of the Square I believe
canvas. Private collection, France search for balance and poise, and Picasso, that we must see it as being dynamically
at least, tended to favour the classical charged with all the wealth of visual
its art' (in itself, of course, a very pyramid in his compositions. Malevich, material that Malevich had absorbed in
futurist thing to say). Malevich devotes even at a later date when he was his formation of an artist, and that in
more time to Futurism than to Cubism distinguishing more clearly between the turn it can be split or broken apart to
in the manifesto, and this is in a sense aims of Cubism and Futurism continued form a whole new pictorial vocabulary.
strange, since he can have seen little or to see certain cubist forms as being Of one of the paintings exhibited at
no Western European futurist painting `explosive'. The Cubists had taken o. to Malevich later remarked: `(Here) we
(except in reproduction) whereas his objects apart but an appreciation of their see a particular composition, the
work during the past years shows that he aims involves the spectators' ability to Suprematist state of the Square which
had studied successive phases of Cubism reconstruct them in greater plenitude has disintegrated into different shapes'."
with passionate interest. than traditional means allowed. Malevich At least three other factors must be
And yet this odd verbal emphasis on on the contrary believed, and continued taken into consideration in discussing
Futurism in the face of a much greater to believe, that all matter 'disintegrates the genesis of the Black Square. In 1913
visual interest in Cubism, brings us, into a large number of component parts Tatlin had visited Picasso's studio in
perhaps very close to an understanding which are fully independent'.19 In the Paris, and there the reliefs in wood and
of the means by which he realized his same way the letters stencilled or painted cardboard and metal hanging on the walls
pictorial vision. And I would suggest that onto cubist paintings are always used had come to him as a revelation. These
whereas artists in Western Europe associatively, as clues or keys to help the reliefs had in turn been inspired by a
(particularly in Germany but also to a spectator to identify and reconstruct the simple tribal mask owned by Picasso
certain extent in England) tended to look subject. Malevich, however, talks of who had been struck by the way in which
at Cubism through futurist eyes, or to them as dissociative or dislocating the African craftsman had been able to
assimilate in turn only those devices of elements, somehow denying the assemble a few abstract shapes (seen in
Cubism which the Futurists had important or significance of subject isolation, none of the component parts
borrowed for their own ends — and this matter. of the face have any representational
was because Futurism was much more The black square, emblem of significance) in order to render a human
immediate, much more accessible as a Suprematism, is a static form, but in the head. The realization opened up a whole
pictorial style, more dramatic and popular manifesto there is a constant emphasis new range of sculptural possibilities —
in its appeal than was Cubism — on movement and dynamic tensions or possibilities that were to lead in one
Malevich on the other hand had come to sensations. 'Art', Malevich insists, 'is the direction into Constructivism; and it is
look at Cubism through a futurist ability to construct . .. on the basis of one of the mysteries and miracles of
programme or through a futurist weight, speed and the direction of modern art that a simple, genuinely
aesthetic. For example we know that the movement'. In the same way the Square primitive artefact should have been at the
element of abstraction and fragmentation was the most reduced, the most minimal direct root of one of the most
or dislocation in the earlier phases of canvas yet to have been painted but we technologically sophisticated and
Cubism was at the service of an attempt find its author declaring that 'art should visionary of all twentieth-century
to analyse forms in such a way that they not proceed towards reduction or movements. Tatlin had shown a series
could be presented to the spectator from simplification, but towards complexity'. of 'painterly reliefs', directly inspired by
a series of successive view points, or in The black square hangs motionless Picasso's work, at Tramway V, early in
other words in greater fullness or against its white ground, but the 1915, an exhibition where Malevich
completeness. Malevich, on the other processes, not so much by which it was had been represented by such works as
hand, saw this analysis as an attempt to achieved (for there was clearly a strong Woman Beside an Advertisement Pillar.
shatter or fragment the subject: 'The element of revelation in this), but rather Some of Tatlin's reliefs incorporate
Cubists, thanks to the pulverization of by which it could be seen as relating to representational elements, but basically >

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