Maleable Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich was the abstract expressionist who founded the artistic and phillosophical school of Suprematism. The basis of Suprematism is that "the supremacy of pure artistic feeling" ought to be the basis of art, rather than simply the visual depiction of objects. To that end, Malevich's art focused heavily on basic geometric forms such as the square and the circle, two of his most famous works being a black square titled Black Square and another piece called White on White, 2 white squares layered upon each other.

White on White

Black Square

With regards to what themes are embodied in Suprematist work, the style seeks to capture the most non-material essence of art. Specifically, Malevich's Suprematist art exists "in and for itself". What is put on the canvas isn't meant to invoke some sort of materialistic real object, but rather embody a sense of time and space inherit within the painting. By working with the barest essentials like simple geometric shapes, Malevich sought to produce an almost mystical artistic experience, one divorced from material visual cues.

Work Chosen

The work which I have chosen for this assignment is Malevich's Suprematist Composition.

The reason that I chose this work is because it captures the essence which I believe Malevich sought to imbue in his Suprematist works. Namely, it relies primarily on the orientation and positions of its objects in order to communicate its artistic essence. It embodies all of the ideals of his Suprematist movement, using only basic shapes in a way which motivates the viewer through artistic principles of time and space rather than through material visual imagery.

The painting is constructed with a large blue square and a thick black rectangle as its focal points. The blue square invites the viewer to take notice of the rest of the similarly oriented squares, whereas the black rectangle serves as a reference point for everything else. Color is used primarily to group certain objects together, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions as to what exactly each grouping means.

Response

When I viewed this painting, I was immediately captivated by the steep angle along which most of the shapes were oriented. Combined with the various colors, arrangements, and sizes of the shapes, my mind conjured up the image of a data blazing along a fiber optic cable

However, upon noticing the reference point which is the thick black rectangle, I thought of another image. Due to the steep angle that most of the shapes were aligned along, I began to think of the shapes as falling or diving

Above is an example of a piece of video game box art which achieves the same effect by using more visual detail

The sort of motion which the painting seems to invoke

Upon noticing the dynamic range of expression communicated through this exemplarary demonstration of Malevich's art style, I sought to try to recreate it.

Product

I created an emulation of Malevich's work by first recreating the base portrait and then animating the various components in Adobe Flash.

First when I created geometric shapes which comprise the image, I noticed that the ones in the portrait had a certain texture to them, specifically, squares seemed to have a marble like texture or a felt like texture.

In order to recreate these textures, I made a bunch of squares and made them slightly transparent so that they would reveal the appropriate texture behind them.

After creating and positioning all of the geometric shapes, I decided to animate the image. From the start, I knew I would have them slide across the screen along the diagonal that the shapes lie, but I also wanted to give each "group" of objects their own personality by animating some of their components. The effect was different for each group, as it ranged from emulating the firey tail of a rocket to the pulsing movement of a jellyfish.

Ultimately, the animation effect was used to further emulate's Malevich's emphasis on time and space and to give actual motion to the movements implied in the construction of the original potrait.

Reflection

Upon completing this assignment, I learned a bit about the dynamic range of motions that can be expressed in relatively simple stills. I also noticed how remarkably hard it is to accurately align digital objects, as objects with different alignments will stubbornly try to snap to each other even when you don't want to. The range of error on overlaps is similarly unforgiving, due to visual components perfectly masking each other.

In regards to how my representation works in capturing the themes and style of the original, I think that I did a good job in expressing the sense of time and space that was the focal point in the original work. The one specific stylistic aspect which I think my work differs from the original is the fact that some the animations that I gave group of objects emulated movements seen in everyday objects. This stands in opposition to Suprematism's de-emphasis on the visual depiction of objects, but I think on a whole it doesn't completely violate this principle and enhances the range of movement implied in the original.

On the creative side, this assignment gives be a better appreciation for abstract modern-pieces, whose legitimacy I had questioned in my reading response. Though I still don't quite agree with Shahn that all forms can create content, I do have a better understanding of how pure artistic components can express things such as time, place, and motion.