Suprematistic QR code: The Essence of the Legend

“The iron-steel-concrete landscapes of the moment genre were moved by the arrows of fast time.

War, sports, dreadnoughts, throats of rearing guns, mouths of death, cars, trams, rails, airplanes, wires, running words, sounds, motors, elevators, quick changes of places, intersections of the road of heaven and earth crossed below.

Telephones, meat muscles were replaced by iron-current traction. An iron-concrete skeleton through the sighs of gushin gasoline rushed gravity.

Here was a new shell, in which our body is chained, turning into a brain of steel”[6 - Glushkova M., ed., “Krasny Malevich: stat’i iz gazety “Anarhiya” [Red Malevich. Articles from the “Anarchy” newspaper]. Мoscow, Common place Publ., 2016, pp. 85–86.], – wrote Malevich (author’s stanza).

Combining the discoveries of French Cubists and Italian Futurists the left painters gave birth to their own ism – Cubo-futurism which became a domestic trend in the avant-garde art. The movement of Malevich’s Cubo-futurism towards “non-objective” art was made because of the influence of poets (Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, David Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky, Mikhail Matyushin (a man of versatile talents, musician, painter, writer) and his wife Elena Guro, who created Vladimir Mayakovsky innovative association “budetlyane” (from the Russian word form byt’ – ‘to be’)). The synthesis of images, words, music led to the emergence of mutually influencing and complementary artists, poets, actors, musicians who embodied their ideas in the scandalous collection “Slap in the Face of Public Taste”.

D. Merezhkovsky (poet, critic) said the following:

«1) “Futurism is the coming Boor, blasphemers, savages who dismembered the language.

A gang of hooligans, a band of savages, the all-deafening sound of a swindle, a naked savage, a hottentot in a bowler hat”.

2) “Futurism, Cubism are hysteria, futurism is the murder of the soul of the world, eternal femininity”.

3) “Replacement of reproduction by mechanical means, abomination and desolation…”[7 - Glushkova M., ed. Krasnyj Malevich: stat’i iz gazety “Anarhiya” [Red Malevich. Articles from the “Anarchy” newspaper]. Мoscow, Common place Publ., 2016, pp. 51.] (author’s stanza).

The meaningless, illogical, abstruse things were declared to be main objects of reality. During this period Malevich wrote three works: “Dressing Box”, “Station Without Stopping” (both in 1913, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), “Cow and Violin” (1913, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). These paintings had one common feature. They were painted on a wooden canvas which was made from the shelves of the bookcase. There was a lack of funds for everyday life and for the purchase of canvases in particular and then furniture was used.

“During his life Malevich did not receive even some of money at which one of his drawings was estimated later (tens of thousands dollars). There is no need to mention a painting that worths millions. Unfortunately for Malevich he continued the romantic tradition of the 19th century where “an unrecognized geniuses died in poverty.” It influenced the “chronological provincialism” of Russia for sure. In the 20th century the situation had changed in the rest of the world. Only Modigliani passed away early and did not see the material dimension of fame. Other great brothers – Matisse, Picasso, Chagall – were not only famous, but also fabulously rich”[8 - Aleksandra S. Shaktskikh, “Kazimir Malevich” [Kazimir Malevich]. Moscow, SLOVO Publ., 1996, p. 16.].

The author revealed the meaning of the painting “The Cow and the Violin” with an inscription on the back of the canvas (which was made from the bookshelf). It said “The alogical comparison of two forms – “cow and violin” – is a moment of struggle against logic, naturalness, bourgeois meaning and prejudices. K. Malevich”[9 - Ibid, p. 32.]. “The Cow and the Violin” was the painting that ment the beginning of the concepts of Abstruse realism and Cubo-futuristic realism.

These three works were presented at the exhibition of the “Union of Youth”, which opened in November 1913 in St. Petersburg.

The Opera “Victory Over the Sun”

as a Reference to the “Black Square”

The idea to create an opera appeared at the “First All-Russian Congress of Futurists” in mid-July 1913 at Mikhail Matyushin’s dacha in Usikirko. It came after the decision to organize the “Budetlyanin” Theater in order to change traditional understanding of theater. The production of “Victory over the Sun” was a synthesis of the alogism of words, music and images. The title of the opera was based on the allegory of the eclipse. The authors saw in it the triumph of the new world, the power of reason over the elements which was different from the ideas of our ancestors who considered eclipse a bad messenger. The idea about the “victory” of technology and science over nature, which was a kind of hope to establish correct world order, was expressed. Two performances of “The World’s First Theater of Futurists” took place on December 3 and 5, 1913 in St. Petersburg’s Luna Park on Dekabristov St. (formerly Officerskaya St.). The author of the sketches was Kazimir Malevich. The text was written by Alexei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. The music was composed by Mikhail Matyushin.

“Victory over the Sun” told the story of the Budlyan strongmen who mercilessly destroyed all the generally accepted norms of common sense. They set out to conquer the sun. The fight against it ended with a complete victory of the Budelian strongmen who aimed primarily to cause a universal scandal and to realize the ideas of nihilism. To sum it up, they wanted victory over the old customary understanding of the sun as something elegant. At the end of the twentieth century this piece of art was called one of the first rock operas.

The opera used an abstruse language, the music was out of the ordinary, the stage design and costumes were caricatured, geometric abstract forms predominated. A black square appears there for the first time, but as a decoration (1st act, 5th scene). According to Malevich’s idea the square covered the sun instead of the solar circle, and the white edging symbolized sun’s penetrating rays. The opera took place inside a large cube.

In March 1915 the first futuristic exhibition of paintings “Tram B” was held in Petrograd. Artists wore red wooden spoons on the lapels of their jackets as badges. The spoon first appeared on February 19, 1914. It was used as the emblem of Februaryism of artists who sought to violate all norms of the “reasonable” dress code in clothes.

Malevich presented sixteen cubo-futuristic abstruse works then. There were “The Lady at the Poster Pillar”, “An Englishman in Moscow” (both 1914, Stedelic Museum, Amsterdam), “Aviator” (1914, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), “Portrait of M. Matyushin”(1913, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). “Composition with Mona Lisa” (1915, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) of the Februaryist period was of particular importance for the artist’s work as a whole. It was a step towards Suprematism, it was a bridge between Cubo-Futurism and Suprematism on the way to non-objectivity. The work contained letters, phrases, sound associations between which illustrations were placed, and geometric shapes of different scales of local color formed contrasts.

At the same time, in May 1915 Malevich re-made sketches for a brochure for a futuristic opera. They were done at the request of Matyushin. During the period of work on sketches, the artist experiences a “partial eclipse”. In a letter to Matyushin, speaking about one of the sketches, Malevich writes: “This drawing will be of great importance in painting. What was done unconsciously now bears extraordinary results[10 - Aleksandra S. Shaktskikh, “Kazimir Malevich” [Kazimir Malevich]. Moscow, SLOVO Publ., 1996, p. 46.]