Black Square and Red Square _{(Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism)}

The painting, Black Square and Red Square is amongst Malevich's most simplistic abstract work, though not quite as extreme as Red Cross and Black Cross. White on White, incorporating some elements in off-white for the purposes of some minimal contrast, was as abstract as Malevich could go. The remaining contributions to his oeuvre beyond this style included some landscape paintings and figurative portraits of the working poor. The squares represent how the artist would reduce compositions down to their smallest component parts.

The composition features a large black square above a smaller red square that itself is tilted slightly to one side. The background is a flat layer of white, deliberately plain and unobtrusive to the main focal point of the painting. Emotion and spiritualism were represented by these shapes. Sadly, in recent decades, the authentication of this painting has been called into question. No mention of it has been found prior to the 1970s which immediately raises some question marks. Considering the lack of documentation around this artist's life as a whole, that does not conclusively prove anything just by itself.

Malevich's Other Works