Suprematism

Suprematism means, in Kasimir Malevich's own words, "supremacy of forms". It is almost a study in "abstract" forms conceived in itself, non-objective, and not related to anything except geometric shapes and colour.

Malevitch created a sort of suprematist grammar of forms that were rooted in square. In the 0.10 exhibition - also called the "last futurist exhibition" - Malevitch exposed his very first experiments in suprematist painting. On the centre of his show was the "Black quadrilateral on white", put in what was called the "golden corner" in ancient orthodox tradition, the place of the main icon in a house. Malevitch considered this picture as a ground zero for suprematism. Suprematism follows the ideas of Non-Euclidean geometry and fourth dimension spread by russian mathematician Lobachevsky. In this view, each picture is a frozen image of an eternal movement of forms in an ideal space of "n" dimensions, no up or down, left or right.

The fundamental visual grammar of Suprematism also includes the circle and the cross, made of two alongated squares, forming two rectangles that cross one another. Malevitch always took the symbols of orthodox tradition. Deprived from the right to paint abstract pictures, Malevitch nevertheless kept his main conception. In his autoportrait of 1933 he picture himself in a very traditional way - what is the only way permitted by stalinist cultural policy - but signs the picture with a tiny black over white square.