Kasimir Malevich :: Russian Painter Designer Artists Essays

Kasimir Malevich Kasimir Malevich, a Russian painter and designer, was born near Kiev on February 26, 1878 (Guggeheimcollection.org) and was â€Å"one of six children from Russified Poles† (Articons.co.uk). While living in Ukraine, he became absorbed into art during his teens, â€Å"largely teaching himself† the basics (Articons.co.uk). After saving his money â€Å"from his job as a railroad clerk† (Articons.co.uk), Malevich enrolled in the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1903 and began to study art more seriously. Later he trained at Kiev School of Art and Moscow Academy of Fine Arts and â€Å"produced portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes† in his early stages of his career (Artstudio.com). By 1907 Malevich â€Å"took part in the Moscow Artists' Society's twice yearly exhibition along with such artists as David Burliuk, Aleksander Shevchenko and Natalia Goncharova† (Articons.co.uk). â€Å"He began working in an unexceptional Post-Impressionist manner, but by 1912 he was painting peasant subjects in a massive `tubular' style similar to that of Leger as well as pictures combining the fragmentation of form of Cubism with the multiplication of the image of Futurism† (ibiblio.org). In these initial years of study, art was not the only interest in Malevich’s repertoire. â€Å"In 1913, with composer Mikhail Matiushin and writer Alexei Kruchenykh, Malevich drafted a manifesto for the First Futurist Congress† (Guggenheimcollection.org) and began taking a â€Å"more philosophical and theoretical approach to art† (Articons.com). Also in that year, the artist â€Å"designed the sets and costumes for the opera Victory over the Sun† for these friends which was showed at the Salon des Independants in Paris in 1914. Kruchenykh and others introduced Malevich to the â€Å" the notion of ‘zaum’† in 1913, which was a â€Å"state where experience occurs beyond the naturally perceived world† (Articons.com). â€Å"This concept and his work for the Cubo-Futurist opera Victory Over The Sun (1913) propelled Malevich into the style of Suprematism† (Articons.com). It was at this time he began â€Å"creating geometric patterns in style he called Suprematism† (ibiblio.org). Although Malevich claimed to have created a picture â€Å"consisting of nothing more than a black square on a white field,† (ibiblio.