Suprematism

Suprematism is a visual language of radical non-objective abstraction that proclaimed the supremacy of pure feeling over the depiction of real things. Its core idea, formulated by the Ukrainian artist Kazimir Malevich (born in Kyiv in 1879), was to reduce painting to primary geometric elements and colour as self-sufficient carriers of spiritual energy. Formally, Suprematism operates with simple figures — the square, circle, cross, rectangle and triangle — which hover in a boundless white space, freed from gravity and horizon. Its palette at first favoured pure local colours — black, red, blue and yellow on a white ground — and later arrived at "white on white". Composition is dynamic, built on diagonal ascents, rhythm and the tension between forms that create a sense of cosmic movement. Technically, the surface is smooth, impersonal and stripped of expressive brushwork. The movement's manifesto was the "Black Square" of 1915, shown at the "0.10" exhibition in Petrograd — a kind of "icon" of the new art. Malevich, whose roots are tied to Kyiv, gathered followers: El Lissitzky developed the idea in his "Prouns", while Olga Rozanova and Ivan Puni worked in a Suprematist vein. The movement interacted closely with Constructivism and influenced architecture and design. Suprematism became one of the cornerstones of the world avant-garde. Today it is valued for its philosophical radicalism, its purity of form and its visionary striving toward a new spiritual dimension of art.