More than any other work, Malevich's fame rests on this one painting. The cheek of it is still fairly astounding, an important part of its dark brilliance. When it was first shown in 1915 it made Malevich the leading figure in Russian avant-garde circles. The black square quickly became a cult object. Malevich's mother knitted jerseys with squares on them; his pupils wore black squares as insignia on their cuffs. What follows is made more complex by the fact that Malevich was born in Ukraine.
The intention was to produce a work that cleared the decks of everything painting had been in the past – recognizable subject matter, light, space, colour – to make way for an art that was utterly new, one that would adorn a comparably radical, reformed society.
At the same time Malevich wished to stress the Russian-ness of his new paintings when they were first exhibited. For example, we know that Black Square was hung high up on the wall across the corner of the room, a location loaded with meaning for this is where an Orthodox icon would be placed in a home or tavern; anyone passing would bow or make the sign of the cross. Strange as it may seem for an image that appears to be such an uncompromising statement of denial, it’s crucial to bear in mind that Malevich’s motives were ultimately spiritual in nature.
For the next few years Malevich’s style of painting, which he named Suprematism, was welcomed by the revolutionaries. While Malevich painted his idealistic abstractions, the Bolsheviks were creating a new Communist state. Under Stalin everything changed. Modernism was banned, Malevich was arrested and only escaped with his life by reverting to a figurative style. The original painting, relatively recently recovered from storage, is now poignantly cracked and flaking.
Malevich died in 1935. He was given a state funeral in Leningrad . Laid in a Suprematist coffin, a hearse decorated with black squares drove his body to the station from where it was taken to a cemetery outside Moscow. His grave, also marked with the black square, was destroyed in the Second World War.
