Kasimir Malevich (1878 - 1935)Artists are often a contradiction, and perhaps the best example of that is Kasimir Malevich. A highly cerebral artist, Malevich had a fascination with the philosophy of art. He applied his philosophical ponderings towards the invention of Suprematism, which aimed to elevate emotion above all other cognitive processes. Specifically, Malevich wanted to remove logic and objective form in order to enhance the emotional power of the painting. According to his Suprematism manifesto: "Hence, to the Suprematist, the appropriate means of representation is always the one which gives fullest possible expression to feeling as such and which ignores the familiar appearance of objects. Objectivity, in itself, is meaningless to him; the concepts of the conscious mind are worthless. Feeling is the determining factor ... and thus art arrives at non objective representation at Suprematism...Everything which determined the objective ideal structure of life and of "art' ideas, concepts, and images all this the artist has cast aside in order to heed pure feeling... Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art which, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of "things."
Kasimir Malevich Black Square 1915
In more simple language, by moving away from realistic objects and context, Suprematism aimed to facilitate a cognitive desert in which the audience could create pure feeling that was uncorrupted by socially constructed meaning. Ironically, creating work that was disconnected from reality left his viewers confused about how they should feel. As a result, Malevich used artist statements to tell viewers how they should feel. In short, he used words instead of images to create socially constructed meanings. Additionally, Suprematism was the creation of a philosophical process, and was therefore a product of the objective world. Even though Malevich stated that he was striving for pure emotion, he failed to achieve it. In truth, he created some of the emotionally barren artworks in history. Art that is disconnected from the context of reality is excessively safe and relatively devoid of emotion. Malevich’s Supremacist world was a simple world of shapes and colours, and presented none of the challenging feelings provoked by the contradiction and confusion of life's problems, nor the feelings of appreciation stimulated by life's beauty. For example, it couldn't seriously be argued that Malevich's Black Square had anywhere near the same emotion as Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night. In Van Gogh's master piece, the tree, the sky, the moon, the houses, and the stars do not distract the viewer nor corrupt the emotional intensity of the work. They add to it. As well as reducing emotional intensity by disconnecting his imagery from the context of reality, Malevich reduced his emotional intensity through his choice of shape and colour. In regards to shape, a field known as psychogeometrics asserts that personality type can be predicted with 87% accuracy based upon the type of shape people choose as their favourites. Those who gravitate towards squares are personalities that like order, structure and rules. Additionally, they are people who are not typically fond of the emotional realm. Black also has strong psychological associations with emotional restraint. Specifically, it is the colour of mourning where people close down their emotional realm in order to reduce their pain. Rather than seeing Malevich as an emotional artist who produced moving pieces of art, it is best to see him as an artistic philosopher who visualised philosophies for consideration. The Scissor Grinder (1912) provides an insight into the extent of thought that he put into his work. The style is a mix of Futurism, which aimed to show movement in a singular scene and Cubism, which aimed to show a mosaic of perspectives of a 3 dimensional scene in a 2 dimensional format on the canvas. Aside from illustrating an understanding of painting philosophies, The Scissor Grinder shows Malevich's methodical approach to planning and his ability to paint in a highly structured and restrained manner. It strongly resembles the art of the personality square.
|
|
