ABSTRACT
Probably the most famous – or infamous – painting of Kazimir Malevich is his Black Square of 1915. Malevich was strongly influenced by the tradition of Russian icons – he drew on their colours and compositions and strove to conjure their deeply spiritual, timeless qualities, but in unfamiliar, non-figurative forms. In the West, he is often associated with European movements of the same period, such as Futurism, but he saw things very differently – in fact, in virtually polar opposite terms. Where the Europeans were caught up in speed, technology, progress and the new, Malevich was immersed in “centuries-old laws and time-honoured principles” 1 and was seeking a sense of constancy in form. Through his paintings, he was attempting to reach beyond history, the contingent, and notions of newness that so preoccupied European artists of his day. He regarded the emergent forms of such ideas as fleeting, and the subjective, creative presumptions on which they were based as individualistic and futile. 2
