Supremativism - Russia's Revolution

As part of my lesson, my peers and I were given the task of researching a randomized subject. As for me, I was given Suprematism, but what does that actually mean?

Suprematism falls back to 1913, where Russian artist Kasimir Malvich developed the abstract art based on basic geometric forms such as squares, lines and circles, then given form in a range of colours from paint.

Kazimir Malevich "Suprematism" 

(1916-17, Krasnodar Museum of Art)

Kazimir Malevich (1915) also quotes on Suprematism that... "Only with the disappearance of a habit of mind which sees in pictures little corners of nature, Madonnas and shameless Venuses, shall we witness a work of pure, living art". 

KAZIMIR, M. (1915) Quotes. [Online] Available from: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-suprematism.htm. [Accessed: 2nd October 2015].

This art movement had also expanded interest in concepts that imagined forms moving through space. A style of art that was simplified, non-objective and greatly influenced the development of Constructivism and the Bauhaus. This style was revolutionary among the great Russian Constructive artists such as El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko, as a way to move forward and create a new. The initial development went through a state of only painting, although eventually it was expressed in other forms such as poetry and theater. Interestingly enough it was also revitalized in traditional Russian folk art.

El Lissitzky "5. Globetrotter (in Time)" 

(1923 Lithograph on paper image: 510 x 430mm Purchased 1976)

Alexander Rodchenko "The Advertisement Poster for the Lengiz Publishing House" (1924)

As a result of Suprematism, a group of Russian artists formed known as 'The Suprematists', who had an interest in abstraction for the 'zero degree' of painting. The idea that which the medium could not go without ceasing to be art. This inspired the very simple motifs of painting shapes upon the flat surfaces of the canvas. However, by the late 1920s, the movement was condemned by The Stalinists to the point where Malevich stopped painting all together between the periods of 1919 and 1927 to work on theoretical writings. Although Malevich's concepts was prevented from widespread exposure, the movement was eventually introduced to the West in 1927, aside Cubism and Abstract Art (1936), and made a groundbreaking influence on American Modernism.

For myself,  I find the foundation of this research and movement vital to better understand the evolution of art through the ages, and acknowledging how certain major art movements came to be on a global stature, such as Russian Constructivism and Modernism.